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THE POWER OF THOUGHT 



THE 



POWER OF THOUGHT 



WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT DOES 



BY 



JOHN DOUGLAS STEEEETT 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

J. MARK BALDWIN 

Pbofebsor of Psychology in Princeton University 




NEW YORK 

CHAELES SCEIBNEE'S SONS 

1896 






-V-t 



^ 



*v 



COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick k Smith 
Norwood Man. U.S.A. 



&0 

MY FATHER AND MOTHER 



INTRODUCTION 

By J. MAKK BALDWIN 

I am glad to be able to write a few words in 
appreciation of the book of Mr. Sterrett; for I find 
it in many respects a timely and valuable work. 
And since my opinion is entirely professional, 
based on psychological reasons — for I have never 
known Mr. Sterrett personally — it may serve to 
bring the book more quickly to the notice of those 
who are likely to value it. 

Mr. Sterrett seems to have done what many pro- 
fessed psychologists would like to be able to do, 
i.e., to write a book which interests people gener- 
ally, without repelling them by scientific terms 
and phrases unfamiliar to the lay mind ; and at the 
same time not to fall into that other pit of popu- 
lar scientific writers, the condemnation of having 
cheapened science by watering it. And this gen- 
eral expression may serve to indicate the two mer- 
its which, to my mind, commend the present book. 

In the first place, Mr. Sterrett' s style is suffi- 
ciently noteworthy to draw favorable notice to his 



VI INTRODUCTION 

work. It is refreshingly spontaneous, unaffected, 
and telling; and the diction is individual and 
striking while not strained. For my own part, 
I am free to say — even though it involve a per- 
sonal confession — that many of the current works 
on psychology seem to me in style hard, unliv- 
ing, and rein wissenschaftlich, after reading the 
vivid English in which Mr. Sterrett puts his 
thought. 

And in the second place, I find Mr. Sterrett's 
pages filled with points of view which are those of 
the latest scientific investigators. This is to me a 
matter of great interest; for Mr. Sterrett has writ- 
ten partially apart from the current of discussion. 
His personal semi-isolation has not impaired his 
results ; but the rather has it heightened the effect 
of his personal talent, and at the same time served 
to give a very unusual naturalness and convincing 
quality to the truths which the new scientific terms 
and formulas make, in a measure, rigid and for- 
bidding. I might point out such points of view 
in larger number; but it may suffice to signalize 
certain of the greater doctrines which give main 
purpose and character to the work. 

One such point of view is that which Mr. Ster- 
rett has embodied in his title, "The Power of 
Thought," and which furnishes the real motive 
of the whole. The doctrine that all action is the 
outcome of thinking, in some shape; that conduct 



INTRODUCTION Vll 

only reveals, and cannot help revealing, the prog- 
ress of knowledge — this is now just getting to be 
a doctrine of common acceptance under such terms 
as " Suggestion, " " Motor Elements, " " Dynamogen- 
esis," etc. Mr. Sterrett carries out this view in 
many of its interesting bearings; among which I 
find his position on the "free will" controversy 
the only rational and true one. As part of this 
general position, his way of stratifying conscious- 
ness, as it were, in periods, beginning with the 
earliest infancy, leads him to a thoroughgoing, 
genetic method which he is the first, as far as I 
know, to embody in a text-book. Here again, I 
think, his intuitions are, in the main, true to the 
progress which genetic psychology is making. 

Finally, the other thing which I would mention 
about Mr. Sterrett' s book is the philosophy which 
he brings to it. It is dualism — the point of view 
of Hamilton, and our own McCosh and Porter. 
But dualism in philosophy has, heretofore, suf- 
fered from an inadequate and superficial psy- 
chology. Neither the doctrine of "The Power of 
Thought," nor that on which the genetic method 
is founded, has been developed by the advocates 
of the so-called "soul theory"; and, as a promi- 
nent psychologist has recently said, the " soul the- 
ory " needed restatement in view of the advances 
of psychology in these and other lines. Quite 
noteworthy is his repudiation of those traditional 



Vlll INTRODUCTION 

burdens of dualism, the " substratum " theory and 
the "faculty " theory. I feel the freer in pointing 
out the success of Mr. Sterrett in this direction in- 
asmuch as my own philosophical point of view is 
somewhat different from his. Even those who do 
not agree with the author, as of course I do not 
sometimes, will nevertheless recognize the high 
quality of his work. 

Both in matter and form, therefore, I think Mr. 
Sterrett's book will be found trustworthy by the 
general reader, and also available by teachers in 
search of a text-book in the elements of psychology. 

Princeton, July, 1896. 



PREFACE 

From of old, men have been much given to phi- 
losophizing. This spirit of restless inquiry is to 
be accounted for by the interest we all take in com- 
prehending phenomena. The present effort is only 
another attempt in the same direction, differing 
from others, it may be, in some of its details, if 
not in conception. The questions treated are such 
as a young man may turn over in his mind, when 
engaged in the serious study of mental and moral 
problems. 

The plan adopted was to write down my thoughts 
on any slip of paper found in my pockets, as I was 
walking, or riding, about the farm, or the neigh- 
borhood, and then wait, often for many days and 
weeks, or even months, until, after some desultory 
reading, or else conversation of the ordinary kind, 
I felt I was in a better mood to deal with some 
leading problem that was engaging my attention. 

After some little time, I found I had a large 
bundle of these little slips, the which I subse- 
quently sorted out and pinned together, as best I 
could. But when I undertook to compose the 
present monograph, I soon found that I was com- 
mitted to the task of throwing away the greater 
ix 



X PREFACE 

number of my slips ; a discovery that surprised, 
and discouraged, me exceedingly. 

Such, in brief, is a history of the troubles I en- 
countered when composing these pages ; my first, 
and certainly final, attempt to address the general 
public. Many of the conclusions reached were by 
no means anticipated. Indeed, many of my former 
views had to be reformed, in part or whole, or else 
abandoned entirely, as I wrote. And the hesi- 
tation with which some friendly psychologists, to 
whom I handed the manuscript for an opinion, 
received some of my speculations, admonishes me 
that they will be seriously challenged. But facts 
and their significance must control our theories. 
The cold gaze of hostile criticism will reveal the 
truth. 

In the treatment of sensations, perceptions, and 
conceptions, much of what I have to say is mainly 
expository, and in keeping with received teachings. 
Still, I have not felt bound to follow any authority, 
however eminent, reserving room for independent 
judgment, without encumbering the argument with 
any formal statement of diverging views which I 
could not stop to refute, in detail. The attentive 
reader will remark, if I mistake not, that the argu- 
ment is not without an individuality of its own. 

Referring now to what is said on the subjects of 
Environment, The Power of Thought, Emotions 
and Desires, Alternative Choice, The Will, etc., 
etc., I have to say that I am not aware of any one 
prosecuting these studies after the manner in 
which I have treated them. 



PREFACE XI 

And here, I would be allowed the privilege of 
explaining the plan I adopted for conveying my 
views to the reader. It will be observed that I do 
not offer to explain everything, at once and ex- 
haustively, but gradually, as the reader can follow 
the explication. For instance, when I am consider- 
ing some old problem of psychology, say the power 
of our thoughts, emotions, and desires, etc., I am 
not to be understood as bound to say, then and 
there, all I have to say of conation, or the will, 
though, as a matter of fact, that power, as will be 
seen in the sequel, is really as much, if not more, 
pronounced in these latter as in any thought con- 
sidered as an intellectual energy. Each subject in 
hand is explained, as fully as the stage of dis- 
cussion will allow of a careful approach to the 
more difficult points involved ; an immediate expli- 
cation preparing us for the heavier tasks reserved 
for a future page. For instance, when I am writing 
a sentence, I aim to put in all the qualifications 
needed to convey my meaning, at that time and 
place. I then follow up with other sentences, each 
of which qualifies its predecessors. And similarly, 
as to paragraphs, sections, chapters, and parts, as 
they succeed and relieve each other in orderly 
sequence, each and all of which are intended to 
qualify, and so bring out my meaning more ade- 
quately. 

I acknowledge my obligations to Eev. Dr. James 
A. Quarles, of Washington and Lee University, 
Virginia, Prof. J. Mark Baldwin, of Princeton 
University, Prof. J. McKeen Cattell, of Columbia 



Xll PREFACE 

College, New York, and Prof. J. B. S. Sterrett, of 
Arnherst College, Massachusetts, for the kind inter- 
est and encouragement extended to me, under cir- 
cumstances of grave anxiety and depression. For, 
without the assistance of these friends, this book 
had never seen its way to publication. In saying 
this, however, it is to be understood that they are 
not to be held responsible for anything I have 
written. 

JOHN DOUGLAS STERRETT. 

Bell's Valley, Virginia, 
May 1, 1896. 



CONTENTS 
Part I 

ENTERING UPON THE PROBLEM 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Preliminary Statements ... 3 

II. The Infant 7 

III. The Adult 17 

IV. Mind and Brain . . . . .21 
V. Environment 36 

VI. Thought a Free Single .... 47 

Part II 

THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE 

VII. The Cradle of Thought ... 61 

VIII. Perceptive Presentations ... 74 

IX. Supplementary Statements ... 79 

X. Conceptive Presentations ... 85 

XI. Moral Conceptions 112 

XII. Restatements 127 



XIV 



CONTENTS 



Part III 

THE POWER OF INFORMATIONS 

CHAPTER 

XIII. Introductory Remarks 



PAGE 

133 



XIV. Preparatory Informations . . 140 
XV. Actile or Ultimating Informations 149 
XVI. Powers in Aid of Free Determina- 
tions 156 

XVII. Thought and Exterior Powers Con- 
trasted 181 

Part IV 



PERSONAL AND VOLUNTARY POWER OF 
INFORMATIONS 



XVIII. Desires and Emotions . 

XIX. Choice and Moral Sanctions 

XX. Alternative Choice 

XXI. Ourself or Soul . 

XXII. Review of the Argument . 

XXIII. A Self-acting Will 

XXIV. The Will .... 



195 
209 
231 
268 
277 
292 
301 



Part I 
ENTERING UPON THE PROBLEM 



CHAPTER I 

Preliminary Statements 



To be a free agent, man must have the ability 
to achieve his freedom. Then no one but himself 
can be implicated in his guilt or innocence. 

And therefore I shall aim in what follows to 
present the facts of his freedom and urge the evi- 
dence for it. If these are not to be found in his 
soul, then, beyond doubt, the thesis for freedom 
has no credible support, and we are the slaves of an 
unbending necessity. Man goes upon his freedom, 
as a valid fact consciously affirmed and never 
disallowed. Still there is a wide divergence of 
opinions when attempt is made to interpret the 
phenomena which either antecede or synchronize 
with every act of free determination. 

II 

Who, then, is a moral agent? How does he 
become such, and why responsible? 

The answer to these questions may be gathered 
as we proceed. For the present, I take a moral 
agent to be a rational person placed within the 
play of inducements, some good, some bad, and who 
can prefer the one or the other, on condition, how- 
3 



4 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

ever, of personal responsibility for his choice. An 
animal has a lower and less gifted free agency. 
But this is a question of comparative intellectual 
vision. Certainly man is free as to all that his 
distinctive intelligence can achieve. It remains 
true, nevertheless, that man, as the unit of all his 
powers, intellectual, animal, and moral, is free and 
responsible only when he founds what he does on 
conceptions of right and wrong. 

The power to do right or wrong, at our option, 
but with a knowledge of the inevitable consequence 
that follows choice, is, therefore, what constitutes 
the soul a moral factor. For the present, however, 
I can only indicate the cardinal points, in passing 
— until, after some further outlining, the subject 
may be studied more deliberately. 

Ill 

Here the question obtrudes itself again, How 
does man become a moral agent? I premise that 
there are many things connected with what he 
does for which he is not at all responsible, in the 
forum of conscience. For instance, what is purely 
native and, therefore, prior to any act of his, is 
not for him to account for in any way. He comes 
from a germ, and, at birth, is in no condition to 
exercise the functions of a rational and moral creat- 
ure, and, for long, he cannot have command of his 
distinctive powers. But we may say that he has 
them in germ, or else in various stages of growth. 
For the birth of adult morality is held in long 
abeyance, until our rational conquests have wrought 



PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS 5 

out its deliverance fully. And the real point before 
us is to determine how and when man begins to act 
for himself. 

Here are some facts which cannot be ignored: 
We have a vital, rational, and moral capacity, 

! giving us, after a time, our proper personal powers. 

1 In early infancy, these do not act with the ac- 
quired efficiency reserved for riper years. 

But they take root then, and grow with the 
growth of life and thought, undergoing a discursive 
training which will inform us what to do, and hoiv, 
on experience and judgment. 

But now when we can securely lay hands on our 
ripened powers, man is set apart to enter upon a 
new order of acts ; namely, those which express the 
force of moral convictions. He has labored up to 
the position of a moral creature, and governs him- 
self by the power of his moral conceptions. He 
has entered upon a moral career ; his moral freedom 

j is known in thought and act, because, on his dis- 

1 covery of moral conceptions, he has discovered a 
power which he can make use of in shaping the 
affairs of conscience and conduct. 

IV 

But whose disposition actuates him? Mani- 
festly his own, if, indeed, man acquires a moral 
power in acquiring moral distinctions. And yet 
what is called our dispositions is vexed with an 
\ overplus of the knottiest difficulties, most of 
which, however, have their source in an order of 
things coming in before our birth, and therefore 



b THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

out of sympathy with the personal power acquired 
in amassing knowledge. The truth is, as before 
stated, that when one essays moral conduct, it is 
because he has discovered a law for right and 
wrong, and so himself evokes the awful stringency 
found in morals. 

But, as I said, our native dispositions — even 
our nature and much of our environment — come 
in before we are born, giving each of us a peculiar 
individuality, even when in germ. Still, what is 
all this but the prelude to what is responsibly done 
when one is competent to command his conduct in 
accordance with conceptions distinctly his own? 
The Creator provides all this needed outfitting and 
antecedent furnishing, simply to have us equipped 
with a discursive competency to act for ourselves. 



CHAPTER II 
The Infant 



The first step in the argument for moral freedom 
should be an earnest and careful study of the 
child's mind and native forces. I am referring to 
its native endowments or dispositions more partic- 
ularly. We are certainly governed by our disposi- 
tions, and, when acting for ourselves, must come 
to know them as factors which enter into our every 
act. However, for present purposes, let us take 
them to be that combination of psychical capaci- 
ties, rational, animal, and moral, which opens the 
way to that accepted responsibility for our acts 
which comes of our conscious achievements. 

So much, to have done with this ambiguity, for 
the present. 

II 

It may possibly aid our study to offer some 
explanation of how the child succeeds in acquiring 
the powers of a moral agent. Minute details apart, 
some few controlling facts may suffice for our pres- 
ent purposes. The child is just born. Its own 
life — sensations, cognitions, etc., with the con- 
comitant emotions — comes to its apprehension on 
7 



8 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

first acquaintance, and as a first knowledge it knows 
not how or whence. It is a surprise party, with- 
out the support of even a minimum of experience 
to steady its unfolding powers, or to assure it of a 
foothold beyond its incipient struggles. It finds 
itself suddenly caught up into vivid conscious- 
ness from the ends of the earth, and, as yet, with 
no balance of judgment for confronting the un- 
wonted powers of flesh, spirit, and nature. It 
wails helplessly as it makes its way into the over- 
shadowing mystery that bangs about its ears and 
rings through its soul. However, thought is eager- 
eyed, combative, curious, and anxious for the work 
of interrogation and discovery, and the child be- 
comes gradually reassured, if not aggressively 
active and sapient. 

Ill 

I have adverted to a few of the more obvious 
foundation facts found in the infant soul. And 
here, it is important to remember that these are 
vitally articulated with the supreme factors of 
mind and morals. And I have made mention of 
its struggles. At first it knows nothing, not even 
itself, nor thought, nor consciousness, for it has 
no conscious antecedents, realizing conscious 
thought without previous acquaintance. But in 
an instant, this, our child, then so inexperienced, 
awakens to the touch of consciousness, the hidden 
powers of flesh and spirit pulsing through its s©ul 
in a strange jargon. But all these beginnings of 
life, and thought, and action, in one so artless and 



THE INFANT 9 

inexperienced, are pregnant, supernatural facts 
coming direct from the Creator's mind, and there 
is more of the superhuman seen in them than in 
the more stupendous monuments of nature. 

IV 

I offer now a short study of the growth of the 
infant soul, noting some of the earlier manifesta- 
tions of its powers. Prominent among these are 
its native impulses ; native and therefore not to be 
confounded with the voluntary impulsions which 
are born of thought. The child has the feeling 
of hunger, thirst, curiosity, etc., shut up, as it 
is, to some vague form of unrest, or else to all 
the unhelpfulness and unwisdom of mere brute 
force. But even at that early period it can begin 
to energize discursively, albeit dominated by im- 
pulses, well nigh, if not altogether, animal and 
brutish. And therefore would I remark the more 
particularly how its distinctively human powers 
gather strength and expand in an ascending scale, 
as it discovers and explores the broad fields of 
research which invite investigation. For even 
such a beginner will strive to realize some of its 
possibilities, and act intelligently, and even re- 
sponsibly, as may be presumed from the fact that, 
after all, the child is not an imbecile. So, at the 
appointed time, it will affirm knowledge and its 
power, and wield that power as it thinks. But 
when just born, it is not taught of its slumbering 
gifts, though their active mission will not be long 
delayed. Meantime, its infant wants are cared 



10 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

for by the mother. And as she is providing for 
all these, she is, at the same time, fostering the 
growth of its kindling intelligence. 

Here a great change takes place. She informs 
its blind strivings, leading it afield by the light of 
informations addressed to its opening appercep- 
tion. For though it be but a mere babe, it will 
soon give some first thought to what is brought to 
its notice. The mother is fond, and, as I said, 
informs her child in many tender ways. She kisses 
its little hurts, and it subsides into blissful, trust- 
ful, healthful, peaceful slumber. And the work 
of love and duty knows no intermission. The 
child is hers by right, divine and human, and her 
heart softens with blissful tenderness in its 
presence. 

Meanwhile, it is regarding all these tactful, 
loving attentions with acutest, shrewdest interest. 
And by and by it is no longer a thing of ignorance, 
like a mere animal controlled by animal impulses. 
For, indeed, as soon as these latter are led forth 
in paths of human thought and achievement, they 
know the voice of their leader and follow him. 
And ever afterward, no exclusively animal, not 
to say brutish, impulse can determine conduct, 
except through some discovery of thought coming 
in to sanction or reject it — on condition, never- 
theless, of a personal responsibility fixed upon the 
actor. 



THE INFANT 11 



But let us define more articulately the attitude 
of the infant mind when touched with all these 
maternal ministrations. 

We have seen that it is alert, attentive, and 
curious almost from the outset. All intelligence 
is active, discursive, and watchful, and the child 
is emotioned accordingly. For what it sees, in 
that first contact of its infant thought with the 
world of things about it, is as fascinating as a dream 
of perpetual spring to its heaving breast. And 
therefore is it the more eagerly prompted to seek 
knowledge and so frame some first opinions of its 
mother, and the form and pressure of her atten- 
tions. Effort succeeds effort, as thought succeeds 
thought. And so, after some brief interval, sundry 
modest notions will begin to crystallize in some 
well-grounded convictions on which to act. Still, 
its native animalism is not to be too hastily sup- 
planted by the conscience and conception of its later 
humanity. However, we shall not wait long. 

The crude native appetencies, at first so untaught, 
are so often directed to objects specially fitted to 
appease them, the child has so often traced its 
sensations of touch, taste, sight, etc., to what pro- 
duces them, that a time comes when it can form a 
valid judgment upon the problem of these so urgent 
physical promptings and their offices; and there- 
upon, by reason of its now more urgent humanity, 
it assumes for itself the task of personally ap- 
praising, not alone sensations and their gratifica- 



12 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

tion, but each kind of appetency, whether native 
or cultivated, by its conformity or non-conformity 
to its judgment of what is best or preferable in view 
of its cultivated wants. For, indeed, all thought 
is a discovery, or else a clarification in order to a 
discovery, of something which appeals to our edu- 
cated wants. And if this be so, then the child 
must eventually see that its every thought tends 
to compass the intelligent needs and broader 
aspirations of its now instructed humanity. 

VI 

As previously intimated, the first intellections 
of the child are not slow to present themselves. 
In fact, they are seen in the faintest initial glows 
of the dawn of consciousness, while, as yet, it 
cannot discern them as maturely distinct from 
other elements with which they are associated. 

Details will be cared for, as the argument proceeds, 
in this and future chapters. But the point I would 
here make is, that the child does, finally, relieve 
itself from a condition of bondage to native impul- 
sions which, as purely vital and animal, cannot be 
mentally defined or known at the first, as they will 
be through the light of discoveries that set us free 
from the slavery of ignorance, or feeble thinking. 
• For, as thought takes up its resources, the child, 
becomes more and more under the sway of reason, 
though it may never, and should never, part com- 
pany with what is distinctly animal and vital, lest 
peradventure it part company with, or at least 
mutilate, its characteristic humanities. 



THE INFANT 13 



VII 

I am now regarding the child as at an age when 
it can project a rational impulse, called emotion 
or desire. For thought without its power is 
an empty, impossible, and irrational acquisition. 
But there is none so feeble that it does not have 
at least a minimum of the power of a moral agent. 
Now, it is this thought, or knowledge, or concep- 
tion, which furnishes the child with a rational 
impulse known as desire or emotion. But this is 
an anticipation. 

Moreover, the child is no longer now compelled 
to act without thought, at the dictation of any na- 
tive, or animal, impulse. The grip of thought sanc- 
tions and finalizes its acts. And what it does is done 
on a view of what is best for itself, judiciously, 
and, it may be, with many imperfections, but still 
with final, hearty approval. For it has now dis- 
covered within its soul the might and mystery of a 
dominant humanity which cannot allow the unques- 
tioned sway of animal propensities. 

It conceives a good and a bad for itself, — rational 
convictions fairly and honestly labored up to. It 
reasons, and acts with its reasons. And ever after- 
wards it is a rational power, governed by its own 
opinion of what it shall do with itself. 

VIII 

In due time, this infant soul makes acquaintance 
of still another power. Surely, but slowly, there 
come to it tidings of the quality of its own and 



14 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

others' actions, the good and bad, the right and 
wrong, of thoughts, and deeds, and actors. In that 
very moment, moral power is born. The child has 
conceived its first ideas of moral rectitude and 
depravity. It is now a regenerated soul with power 
to conceive an order of acts founded on these later 
informations, but without the power to resume an 
order exclusively animal, or even simply intelli- 
gent. It has reached the last stage of spiritual 
pilgrimage, and is now a moral power, versed in 
the law of right and wrong. 

IX 

I offer here a final statement of conclusions 
reached in this chapter. 

1. At birth, the child has a body and spirit fur- 
nished of God. These antecede its every act, being 
in no sense its acts, nor voluntary to it. 

2. There is an ordinance of God which endows 
it with involuntary impulsions, or native appeten- 
cies. These challenge recognition, and that too 
without dispute, until it can lay hold on its 
responsible powers, and so make good its ability 
to attemper the former by opinion and judgment. 
And yet, withal, though true impulses, they are 
not true desires, because, acting as blind instiga- 
tions, they cannot be voluntary. 

3. For all such original factors, going, as they 
do, only to an original equipment for a competent 
thinker, can never be lifted out of their constitutive 
limitations, and put to playing the part of neces- 
sity within the precincts of discursion and choice. 



THE INFANT 15 

This would be to transmute the limitation by God's 
laws, and thus confound the action of heterogeneous 
powers — which is absurd. 

4. It so happens that, just as the native impulses 
begin to act in the child, its thought, and subse- 
quently its moral appreciations, rise into being, as 
incipient forces confronting the former. Now I 
am not mooting the question whether the child 
ever has even a single native impulse which emerges 
unchallenged by some qualifying mental supervi- 
sion. But if so, the mind itself must have been 
off duty somewhere — for repairs. I am regarding 
the child as, once for all, equipped with rational 
competency, and beginning to act for itself. For, 
indeed, it is a power unto itself, fortified with the 
several resources of a far-seeing intelligence and, 
whenever and however acting, it is free to find its 
way of life by adhering to its way of thinking. As 
a genetic cause, belonging to the being and even 
anatomy of the child, necessity discharges its office 
once for all, but the sweep of its presence is defi- 
nitely cut off by the approach of a new comer fenced 
in with the resources of mind, never at all acting 
for itself without thinking for itself. 

5. Child, or, for that matter, man, has still 
involuntary potencies, — still everything to fit it 
for acting for itself. The blind impulses may still 
come in before its voluntary determinations, giving 
thus a notification of some want of the animal 
economy which, the child sees, requires attention 
in view of its own personal economy of rational 
wants and responsibilities. 



16 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

6. The child has antecedents innumerable. It 
is finite. Nothing absolute about it. The repro- 
ductive agencies that made it a germ were not of 
its procuring. So of its nature, native endow- 
ments, involuntary impulses, etc. So, too, of the 
general tendency of everything around it to uphold 
its being and powers, of course, within the law of 
God which provides for its activities. So also, of 
heredity, idiosyncrasies, etc. All these are fur- 
nished of a creative original, in aid of the needed 
competency and stamp of an individual intelligence, 
personal and responsible. But when they have, 
once for all, discharged their office of ushering in, 
and contributing to, the being and life of the new 
power, they are debarred from doing anything, the 
doing of which is the special prerogative of that 
new power. 



CHAPTER III 
The Adult 

I 

At that stage of our discursive pilgrimage when 
thought and desire have effected a mature coales- 
cence, the child has reached manhood. Years 
agone, it has achieved its first ideas, and mental 
power is now a several cause, voluntary, personal, 
and decisive. A cursory view of such a power 
must suffice for the present. 

It is the human mind conceiving, and doing, a 
work of its own. And such a power bids fair to 
discover a way to consummate its rational views. 
Indeed, if one were but half-witted, he could not 
consent to give way to any kind of act, regardless 
of considerations evoked on a knowledge of what 
is good or bad, right or wrong, for himself. 

And here I may suggest a reason why we have 
choice in things pertaining to our conduct. It is 
to save the Self consciously responsible, at all 
hazards. For, without choice, we could never 
affirm ourself responsible for our acts. At all 
events, it is not to have the headlong push of 
involuntary impulses. 

But we may say, it is to have charge of the power 
of our own thoughts, and so be responsible for our 
c 17 



18 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

acts. And though we may do badly, by making 
a bad choice, yet if we are to be our own keeper, 
and not a crippled, irresponsible force, we must be 
free to choose, and do, our own acts, and so affirm 
a conscious, personal responsibility for both choice 
and acts. 

II 

For, if one found conduct on reasons, he cannot 
take a neutral position. Unbridled desires, desires 
misplaced, unwise, even beastly, etc., these and 
others, all have to be subdued to the tone and 
temper of the now responsible self, which will 
maintain the right of choice, whether it fits in with 
downright depravity or the clearest preceptions of 
duty. 

Take, for example, a desire known to be immoral. 
Now, what shall we do? We say, we will have 
none of it. The desire, then, will have to take 
the back seat. Why? Simply because the re- 
sponsible soul will have it that way. 

But again, we may choose to indulge an 
impurity with intense preference. What say we 
now? I appeal to facts for answer. The same 
self can frame a judgment of good or bad, and 
choose, or side with, the bad, — and do it. Here, 
too, the responsible soul has its own way. 

Yes, I mean it! We might have acted other- 
wise, but we did not, and one must have his own 
way, if the act is to be his and he is to be held 
responsible for it. The case is simply this. Man 
conceives his moral informations, and so affirms 






THE ADULT 19 

their obligatory character, and becomes a moral 
force. As such, he cannot act without choosing 
between good and bad, and choice fixes the responsi- 
bility upon him for his acts. He has made himself 
personally responsible for them. 

Ill 

It seems, then, that man is free to think, and 
also free to side with his thoughts, be they good 
or bad, but on coudition of personal responsibility 
for choice. He acts with the efficiency of his 
decisive thought, and cannot refuse thus to act. 
He cannot abide in purely animal impulses, for he 
cannot withhold his rational powers in their pres- 
ence. He is not a dust hole, to be filled in with 
the rubbish of things not his own, as a responsible 
creature. He is a power on earth for good or bad, 
or preferably for both. 

He conceives a moral work, and is moved to do 
it, for reasons of choice; and though finite, he has, 
at least, more than a mere semblance of creative 
power, executing many works that attest the force 
and bent of his thoughts. He is not to be pent up 
in the citadel of mental and moral subjectivity. 
For he is both discursive and aggressive, and so 
what is subjectively only a thought goes out and 
off to its work, and labors up to a new something, 
quite beyond the thought as a mere conception, 
and gives himself a veritable creation, known as 
something he has done, and has done for reasons 
of choice. And therefore are we, in this regard, 
God's modifying and innovating agents at work 



20 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

upon things finite, effecting, as we do, an unwonted 
series of changes and consecutions among them, — 
at the command, and by the power, of thought. 

IV 

Reverting, now, to an imperial access of power 
discerning the ideas of right and wrong and the 
judgment of personal responsibility which follows 
its exercise, we see man rating and ranking the 
deeds of himself and his familiars, by the moral 
standard which he has discovered, even balancing 
his conduct by conceptions of right and wrong, 
as, in truth, himself alone responsible for choice 
of either. 

But then, he is now a moral personage begotten 
of the moral conceptions he has wrought out, and 
to which he must hereafter defer, just as aforetime 
he deferred, more and more, to lighter and lower 
considerations, as we follow him back to the less 
thoughtful days of childhood. But now that he 
is in the power of thought, its grip is not to be 
relaxed, not even if he would. 

So much in the way of general considerations. 
My detailed theory will be systematically unfolded 
in subsequent pages, especially when confronted 
by opposing theories. 



CHAPTER IV 
Mind and Brain 



In this chapter, 1 propose to take in hand an 
objection which goes to the possibility of the mind's 
freedom, and, if valid, closes all discussion. I 
refer to the theory which would trace all our acts 
to the "molecular changes in the brain." This is 
rather a question as to the origin and functions of 
sensations, inasmuch as it would ignore the power 
of mind, whilst laying stress upon that of sensa- 
tion. Indeed, the argument is meant to be a 
sweeping denial to mind, as an efficient, construc- 
tive, discursive cause of anything. I remark, 
therefore, first, upon the origin of sensations. 
And here I may remark that they are a mode of 
body and brain, determined, for the most part, 
by something exterior to the perceiving mind. 
Whereas the latter, for its part, determines ideas, 
informations, voluntary acts, etc. 

Here we see two activities in severe contrast, 
one of mind and one of brain, confronting each 
other, and interacting, at the moment of contact. 
The sensation is an exterior visitor to mind, and 
mind is not slow to give it fit welcome. 

Now I had thought that we had here two activi- 
21 



22 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

ties interacting in severe contrast, one a mode of 
mind, and the other a mode of body ! It seemed, 
therefore, bluntly plain that as each acted from its 
own centre, so each had a power distinctly its own. 
But now that I find scientists affirming that as 
every act of mind has a material antecedent in the 
brain, such act is, for that reason, a material result, 
I must confess to a mild surprise. 

We meet with the following from Du Bois- 
Keymond: "We are accumulating the proof that 
consciousness is bound to material antecedents. 
The condition of a whole world, even of a human 
brain, at each instant, is the absolute mechanical 
result of the condition in the previous instant, 
and the absolute mechanical cause of the condition 
in the following instant." 

Here, we have both cause and result affirmed to 
be mechanical, and consciousness bound to both 
material factors. For it is explicitly stated that 
a condition of brain at each instant is a mechanical 
result, and that this result is the absolute mechan- 
ical cause of its subsequent condition, and that 
consciousness is bound to these mechanical con- 
ditions. 

I am a novice in all this grand, rhetorical dis- 
putation, but I must confess to some little knowledge 
of consciousness, and what it affirms. And I am 
at a loss to divine a plausible excuse for such a 
palpable perversion of the facts of psychology. 
Its absurdity will be apparent when we begin to 
realize the controlling fact that the mechanism of 
the material universe, as well as that of the brain, 



MIND AND BRAIN 23 

" is bound to " a law of God which prescribes and 
circumscribes, and so allows for the action of both 
mind and brain, a condition for both, such that 
brain is as much " bound to " an immaterial cause, 
as the latter is bound to the mechanics of brain. 
Now, because one set of actions is mechanical is 
no reason why another set should also be mechani- 
cal. Because a kite sails by mechanical forces is 
no reason why it should not be held in check by 
a voluntary effort on the part of the kite-holder. 
Each should have the benefit of its diversely 
attempered powers. 

I do not object to brain having all its thronging, 
mechanical transformations, and, for that matter, 
many more. Let us have them all. For mind 
could never, at all, be a power unto itself without 
some way of coming to a knowledge of exterior 
powers, and acting upon that knowledge. On the 
other hand, it is just as certain that brain could 
never have, at any " instant," a single one of its 
vital or physical, otherwise mechanical, causes and 
results, if mind were off duty, or, in some other 
way, out of place. 

The two must stand or fall together. No mind, 
no physical sensations! No physical sensations, 
no mind, because no object for its discursive activi- 
ties ! But more of this in succeeding paragraphs ! 

Before proceeding further, I may explain that, 
if the author could be understood to mean that 
mind and brain are united in one organism whose 
phenomena are conjunct, dependent, and concur- 
rent, I should not controvert that view, allowance 



24 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

being made for the plain limitations to the action 
of both. 

For I admit that the two are mated at birth, 
and grow up together, one maturing mental, as 
the other matures nervous, or physical, potencies. 
But I protest against the intimation that this 
union secures only material causes and results. 

The truth is that both mind and brain are finite, 
and, therefore, restricted and controlled, each by 
its conditions and role of action ; each existing, and 
acting its part, by, and because of, the enabling 
laws which, whilst prescribing what is peculiar to 
each, confine each to its prescribed mode of being 
and activities. The function of each is held to the 
most inviolable restrictions, and if so held, it is 
needless to say that neither can transcend the sweep 
of its powers. 

But retiring Du Bois-Keymond for a season, let 
us reinforce him by another great scientist. Says 
Tyndall:* "We believe that every thought, and 
every feeling, has its definite mechanical equiva- 
lent; that it is accompanied by a certain breaking 
up and remodelling of the atoms of the brain," etc. 
This is much like Du Bois-Reymond's argument. 
Both seem to argue from the mechanics of brain to 
mechanics of mind. 

Still one should be thankful that Tyndall seem- 
ingly permits thought to accompany, and perhaps 
finger, the all-embracing mechanics somewhat 
vaguely, being "accompanied by a certain break- 
ing up, and remodelling of the atoms of the brain," 
though, it may be, only as a spectator. And for 



MIND AND BRAIN 25 

my part, I am far from- denying that mind and 
brain may work together in prescribed and restricted 
relations, but I am as far from admitting that this 
working together of mind and brain, as far as it 
goes, turns up only mechanical causes and results 
for what mind does. 

May I inquire, does this admitted coordination 
of the two powers contravene the functional pre- 
rogatives of either, in the slightest particular? 
What if the whole effect of such a close union of 
the two is to conserve, and uphold, the several 
dissimilarities allotted to each, in its appointed 
sphere of action ! One cannot act without the other, 
or for that matter, be what it is, simply because of 
a pre-arrangernent for a restricted dual action, and 
appointed results. And so, if there be a union of 
two activities, such as that of mind and brain, in 
order to conjoint results, no one need be surprised 
that the functions of each will disclose points of 
dependence on that union, disclosing features, let 
us imagine, widely different from what they would 
be, if each could act in disunited severalty. More- 
over, I shall treat them, as I find them, compacted 
together, " one and inseparable " — through life. 
But will an arrangement that secures the con- 
nected, finite, and, therefore, restricted, actions 
of mind and brain, obliterate the characteristic 
functions of either? Will the action of brain 
make that of mind all material, or that of mind 
make that of brain all immaterial? Still, one sup- 
position is quite as reasonable as the other, and 
both are lamentably incredible. And if so, what 



26 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

becomes of all this twaddle of scientists about the 
absolutely mechanical causes and results of brain 
upon mind? 

II 

Suppose, now, that we wish to have a discursive 
but free activity hold communion with things 
material and physical, and set up a power dis- 
tinctly its own, even the power of knowledge, in 
their midst, and with that view put mind and 
body together in one organism, and thus succeed 
in securing our object! 

Here, we are in need of some explanations, more 
philosophical than psychological. 

It is evident that mind cannot be mind, unless 
it gets knowledges, and it cannot get these except 
the object of knowledge be placed within its reach. 
Hence the need for that intimate union of mind 
and brain which brings them into immediate con- 
tact, and by which the former can take instant 
cognition of the latter, and in this way, have some 
proximate object within its reach, on which it can 
act discursively. Now, it is by this very device, 
that mind, in respect of the physical sensations 
presented in the sensorium, has its sole possible 
opportunity, under the fundamental laws which 
prevail herein, to perceive, or reason, and ultimately 
know and do many things. Think of an act of 
cognition! A sensation, being a mode of brain, 
swims into the mind's presence, giving the latter 
an opportunity instantly to lay hold of an object 
lodged in the sensorium — an object which it would 



MIND AND BRAIN 27 

by no means know, if mind and brain conld not 
come into the immediate presence of each other. 
And herein lies the ultimate justification for the 
intimate compacting of the two factors concerned, 
the direct contact of the perceiving mind with outer 
objects giving it a firmer grasp upon powers not its 
own, even those of matter, and its inner and outer 
correlations. 

And here I could wish to give my views more 
clearly. 

I maintain that, when matter and spirit are bound 
together in an organism, at once vital, animal, and 
thoughtful, there will emerge a series of interac- 
tions so dependent on that union, that a given 
change will disclose a voluntary result, let the 
cooperating mechanics of the brain be what it may. 

And, therefore, I insist that, if the social com- 
pacting of two such factors as mind and brain, 
allows of certain limited interactions between the 
two, I am unable to divine why such compacting 
of the two should result in either one swallowing 
up the peculiar causal efficiency of the other. Is 
the centre for discursive causation so infringed 
upon that it cannot contribute its own efficiency? 
Does organization of two powers mean the conser- 
vation of one, and the annihilation of the other? 

Can any good reason be assigned for this mutila- 
tion of the dualism of mind and brain? If not, 
how can we hold that the antecedent condition of 
brain furnishes " the absolute mechanical cause " of 
any condition of mind, in any instant? What 
becomes of mind and its cognitive powers working 



28 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

along with, and upon, every mechanical antecedent 
that can pretend to be a cause in contact, and in 
contrast, with the former? 

I was assuming that the two were mated together 
for a conjoint work which required the active inter- 
vention of their diverse efficiencies. But here, we 
are startled with the scientific discovery (?) that 
brain engineers its work so successfully, that it 
utterly displaces the causal efficiency of its co- 
worker! The thing is abundantly unthinkable. 
Brain can be a material cause, though " bound to " 
mind, but mind cannot be an immaterial cause, 
because " bound to " brain ! 

And yet, this is what science teaches. However, 
one could take it better, if these advanced thinkers 
would only condescend to explain why mind should 
not have the credit of its powers as distinctly and 
cheerfully affirmed, as they affirm those of brain. 

Ill 

A few plain statements will vindicate a truer 
science without belittling either mind or brain. 
Mind is the ideating centre, and whatever else 
brain may do, it cannot deliver one single idea. Its 
data are intra-cerebral excitations, called sensa- 
tions, and it delivers these, and these only. Per 
contra, mind, for its part, begins a work of thought 
on these physical deliverances of the co-working 
brain. It acts promptly, in order to the power of 
knowledge. 

It jierceives these physical or cranial excitations 
and, therefore, undertakes to remark upon their 



MIND AND BRAIN 29 

peculiarities and outlying affiliations, what they 
are, and what they do, why they impinge conscious- 
ness, the hence and wherefore of their mission, 
what their significant traits or qualities, and so 
acquires some important informations, and frames 
some opinions, of these exterior potencies, and 
connects all this knowledge with its conscious 
intelligent, or vital wants. 

Apparently, Tyndall allows somewhat for this 
power of mind, though I am not too sure of this. 
With him, as it appears to me, thought has some 
semblance of power to remodel the atoms of the 
brain. But if that is all it can do, it might as well 
be cast out entirely. For it is preeminently a con- 
scious, aggressive, constructive, causative potency, 
discovering and utilizing power with every dis- 
covery of knowledge, and building up a rational 
and moral government of its own, in conscious 
contrast with material or physical causes. 

As intimated, I may not do exact justice to 
Tyndall. Perhaps, perhaps! But the candid 
admission that thought has some power to remodel 
the atoms of the brain would be a very damaging 
argument against the position of Du Bois-Rey- 
mond, who compromises both the spirituality and 
freedom of the mind. 

IV 

But to continue our analysis. 

In a spirit of conciliation, we may, for the nonce, 
defer to the contention of scientists, by supposing 
that the spirituality and immateriality, if not free- 



30 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 



dom, of the mind may be imperilled by its connec- 
tion with the brain. If that is the difficulty, let us 
agree to have the connection absolutely severed. 
Here we light upon the animus of all this scientific 
splutter about the material antecedents of mind. 
Our Creator would have our freedom but finite, 
connecting it with a physical body, and unnum- 
bered other conditions, and straightway a cry is 
made about the power of sensations, nerves, brain, 
atoms, etc. 

Now, is there any warrant in reason for this 
scientific ululation? Will scientists have finite 
thought, or, for that matter, anything finite, with- 
out finite limitations? Is their idea of freedom 
such as to require absolute and unconditioned 
powers? The whole material creation is finite, 
bound, hand and foot, by fixed limitations, and 
never the feeblest wail from any scientist! And 
is it so astonishing to find that our thinking 
faculty, also, has to walk b}' a law of discursion 
which limits its action? 

It is even so. Our thinking substance has to 
walk by a law which confines, and conditions, its 
activities. Nevertheless, have Ave any right to 
complain of restrictive conditions which do but 
provide a way for the play of our rational activi- 
ties? Let us rather be thankful that all our possi- 
bilities are surrounded by such safeguards. 

That men of science should resort to such 
arguments from what brain docs, as a proof of the 
mechanics of mind, is a sign of tlie times. What 
can be the motive? If you could annihilate matter, 






MIND AND BRAIN 31 

they would stumble on another batch of affectations. 
They would see to it that thought should be com- 
promised in some way. They would cry out: 
"The condition of a human intellect, at each 
instant, is the absolute intellectual result of its 
condition in the previous instant," complaining, 
thus, that all our mental procedures are determined 
by the state of mind in the previous instant, and 
not by the proper freedom of the present — and so 
are determined necessarily. 

But, in all seriousness, is there any reason for 
staggering thought at a creative act which provides 
for the interdependence and co-action of brain and 
free discursion? We depend on God for every 
structural or constitutive factor which enables us 
to act, and which, so far from upsetting the power 
of thought to determine acts for which we are 
responsible, is His method for establishing that 
power. And if so be we can think and act under 
this dual arrangement, this is a sufficient vindica- 
tion of our rational, and voluntary, procedures. 

Then, why should not the work of thought go 
on, under the conditions and stipulations of the 
original ordinance? We never hear of scientists 
looking out for some original crookedness, in that 
brain is bound to an immaterial cause and result. 
And yet, brain is as much conditioned by thought, 
as thought by brain. Where is the difficulty in 
God's creating, and upholding, a being who can 
think, and act, discursively under conditions which 
enable him to assert his unique powers, in contrast 
and correlation with other powers not mental? 



32 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

All this to repel the intimation that the 
mechanics and molecules of the brain determine 
onr acts, or else, that mind is so under duress to 
brain that it may be either quietly ignored, and 
belittled, or else, contemptuously dismissed, as an 
irrelevant quantity. 



On supposition of the absolute severance of mind 
and brain, how could the former affirm anything 
exterior? On the other hand, how could brain 
deliver sensations within reach of a mental power 
out of all connection with it? But their union in 
one organism, such as we have it in man, provides 
a way for the accepted interactions of both. It 
is through their organic union that mind enters 
upon its appointed mission of discovering that 
which is denied to brain, — voluntary impulsions, 
rational satisfactions, and the joy and triumph of 
free determinations. And in discovering all these, 
it is discovering powers consciously its own, and 
re-affirmed in their continual employment. 

But again, in case of an absolute severance of 
the two, knowledge would depend so entirely on 
an original ability to receive it, that the mind could 
scarcely be regarded as an active party to its 
acquisition. Query! Would this almost alto- 
gether receptive condition of mind leave man 
responsible? Knowing truth through a capacity 
for receptive appropriation, it could never be ours 
by the accepted processes of active exploration and 
discovery. We could not, then, be held responsible 



MIND AND BRAIN 33 

for thoughts, or opinions, which were not acquired 
by a searching study of observed phenomena. An 
arrangement for formulating all knowledge with- 
out effort on our part would contract our personal 
responsibility immeasurably. 

VI 

Eecalling now TyndalPs words that "the brain 
molecules can move only in a determined way," I 
venture some further remarks. 

We may allow all this, when truthfully expli- 
cated. His proposition has been so stated, how- 
ever, as to provoke the inference that rational acts 
can have no rational antecedents, because the 
" molecules of the brain can move only in a deter- 
mined way." This I demur to for the following 
reasons, among others reserved for a future page : 
That brain should have its appointed way of action 
is no reason why mind should not have its appointed 
way of action, or, for that matter, co-action. If 
the one is privileged to move mechanically, why 
not the other, to move rationally? Neither can at 
all move save as it conforms to the law for their 
interaction. It is here that' the fundamental error 
of scientists emerges — from Darwin downwards. 
They make natural selection, environment, etc., 
preach the gospel of mechanics everywhere in the 
universe, allowing nothing for inborn, original, and 
ineradicable distinctions, which can never be mis- 
taken for, or confounded with, the preachments of 
natural selection, environment, etc. In any serious 
discussion of the interactions of mind and brain, 



34 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

whilst claiming those of brain to be mechanical, 
we should with equal candor, and better science, 
concede those of mind to be discursive and volun- 
tary — even rational and selective. 

For my part, I concede a thorough-going coordi- 
nation and dependence of mind and brain, thought 
and sensor organs, both in order to any power of 
brain and in order to any power of mind, in respect 
of the perception and elaboration of phenomena of 
the former. For what brain does can never be 
recognized as a presence, can never be studied and 
known, except by some intelligence. 

VII 

Coming now to a final view of the interaction 
of mind and brain, I propose to inquire if the com- 
bination of the two in man makes him an autom- 
aton? If so, his acts should disclose that fact. 
Now, the one true and decisive way of testing this 
is to ascertain the nature and character of his 
mental powers and acts, gathering up what is dis- 
tinctive and setting it over against the physical or 
mechanical transformations of brain. 

If when subjected to this test, it is seen that 
thought and its efficiencies have nothing material 
in them; if the soul acts as it reasons, and can 
never in any way act without some sufficient reason 
for so acting; if when mated with brain, and be- 
cause so mated, it comes in contact with phe- 
nomena which it rates as physical and material, 
knowing that they are not its own conscious 
powers and activities, then in possessing these 



MIND AND BRAIN 35 

peculiar traits, and in affirming this conscious 
knowledge of phenomena not its own, it swings off 
from matter as a wholly distinct energy, certifying 
the attributes of an immaterial essence. And 
whilst this view conserves both sensation and 
thought, it proclaims also the fact of the intercom- 
munion of diverse powers departing from diverse 
centres. 

Finally, I insist that mind and brain were put 
together for a conjoint work, each contributing its 
appointed portion, according to its several ability. 
Still, all depends on the character of the union. 
The law for its destined work is with the original 
ordinance, even as what is impossible to it is, with 
some disabling inhibition, found in the same ordi- 
nance 5 yea, more, ere it can act at all, its possi- 
bilities are irreversibly determined. 

I repeat! Brain can deliver a sensation, with 
prompt, unerring certitude, but never an idea. It 
is an exciting cause to discursion, but never the 
causal efficiency released by a thought or idea; and 
what it does is in order to what the latter does. It 
conditions thought, opening the way to an asser- 
tion of a constructive or final power born with the 
thought, just as the latter conditions the delivery 
of sensations, giving them that discursive apprecia- 
tion, without which they can have neither mission, 
nor existence even. But much of this is an an- 
ticipation of what will be further brought out in 
succeeding connections. 






CHAPTER V 

Environment 

Closely connected with the discussions of the 
previous chapter is the more general one of Envi- 
ronment, or the power of our surroundings. 

I 

Our first problem is to determine what Environ- 
ment is. Speaking in general terms, it is every- 
thing that conditions, or limits, our personal powers. 
For example, whatever is exterior to a present 
thought has a power exterior to that thought, and 
so may condition it. This embraces, in particular, 
all the bodily organs and mental capacities born 
with us ; as also, native propensities, sensations of 
the external ; all our former thoughts, heredity, the 
abounding world without, and the progressive de- 
velopment of every power that gives us an enlight- 
ened hold on our distinctively human resources, 
enabling us to set up a new order of environment 
due to some dominant power of our thought. What 
comes through heredity, what through an original 
endowment of organs, etc., what through previous 
thoughts, and their order of progressive achieve- 
ment, so far as these impress a present attitude 
of thought, is a very proximate, and ever-present, 
36 



ENVIRONMENT 37 

environment, or qualifying limitation. What comes 
from the outer world is an ultra, or remote, environ- 
ment. But they all conspire to clear the way for 
the innovating powers of mind. Such in conception 
is environment. 

II 

I have already indicated briefly how these out- 
side forces transmit impressions within reach of 
the mind's apperception, not omitting mention of 
some of the paths along which they travel. My 
hasty, preliminary exposition makes it plain that 
matter delivers up to cognition the whole body of 
sensations through the sensor organs, and, also, that 
this delivery would be void of its particular kind 
of result, if mind did not perceive and appraise its 
contents. For if mind were not actively present 
and studiously appreciative, there could be neither 
percept, nor concept, without whose intervention an 
exterior potency were utterly unable to place a sen- 
sorial perturbation within the pale of its jurisdic- 
tion. A sensation is but a physical impression in 
the sensorium, not an idea, not knowledge, not con- 
sciousness. It acts in virtue of a law which cries 
halt to its presenting anything at all like the latter. 
And, vice versa, the same despot cries halt to the 
latter's presenting a sensation, save when it medi- 
ates a share in producing a sensorial impression, as 
in vision, deglutition, etc., when we voluntarily em- 
ploy our members in ministering to the wants of 
nature, or life, etc. 

The old problem of the interaction of sensations 



38 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

and thought, is here, as ever, only a question of 
the power of environment, as seen in its sensorial 
manifestations and the discursive power which 
undertakes to know of their mission. 

Ill 

You remark that we have allowed for the fact 
that external impressions reach the sensorium, for 
the most part, without our direct intervention. And 
now, I am referring to them, in order to bring out 
the point, as often urged, that the normal pressure 
of an exterior power either antagonizes, or else dis- 
places, the power of discursion and choice. Now, 
I am not denying that ordinarily such a power does 
act on us without our procurement, exercising, as it 
does, a pressure just sufficient to awaken the slum- 
bering activities of mind. This is, however, but a 
helpful service of a neighboring, and co-active, po- 
tency, coming in to put us to our own resources, 
affording thus an opportunity for a display of the 
facts, and feats, of mind. 

Free powers, though finite and limited, are, never- 
theless, free within their limits, just as other powers 
are limited by a law for their diverse reactions. 
And no power can displace a power not its own in 
kind. But free or not free, it is what it is by the 
fundamental law which prescribes the co-acting and 
co-terminous limitations to the two. And, there- 
fore, if the point and pinch of an exterior press- 
ure leave us still self-centred, active, and rational, 
it may have discharged an office of great importance 
for us, without ever violating any prerogative of 



ENVIRONMENT 39 



For our claim to discursive freedom founds upon, 
and within, the scope of our powers, as thus cir- 
cumscribed, and not beyond that scope. It stands 
upon what is consciously a work of conscious power, 
that is to say, an achievement of our thought, opin- 
ion, information, judgment, or knowledge, and the 
power that is born with these. Observe, further, 
that all this trumped-up constraint of environment, 
at least as far as it may be looked upon as an in- 
truder and outsider, comes in before the free power 
takes up its counter-weapons, and thinks and acts 
for itself. How, then, can the former contravene the 
action of a correlative power that does not propose 
to act for itself until it is in the presence of some- 
thing upon which it can act ? Let the former impact 
the latter ever so forcibly, this latter will still be free 
to take action, within normal limits, unless wholly 
upset. The plain truth is that, so far as things ex- 
terior can act on us, they do but furnish conditions, 
or limitations, such as subserve our mental and moral 
economy. Being themselves finite, and, therefore, 
restricted to special transformations of their own 
which they deliver within reach of the mind's power, 
they can never nullify that all-comprehending law 
for the interaction of diverse entities which compels 
a deference to all other entities with which they are 
associated. And the reciprocity applies equally to 
the one and the other, exterior things furnishing 
what we cannot, because we are shut up to what 
actions are our own, whereas we furnish what is 
not theirs, because they are shut up to their own. 



40 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

This is, however, but an averment that, by an 
ordinance of Heaven, we are estopped by barriers 
which confine us, as all else, to our, and their, 
delegated powers. We are not free, save as 
we are restricted by the safeguards placed within 
our nature, or else denned by our external con- 
ditions. 

I insist, therefore, that, so far as a material entity 
performs the office of presenting objects within the 
reach of mind, it simply remits us to acts of con- 
scious intelligence. For, when such an exterior 
cause is freely interviewed by the intelligence, the 
latter begins its proper work of acquiring knowl- 
edge, discovering ideas, such as those of an exterior 
thing and its attributes, existential, or else dynamic ; 
actors and actions, and what they import to us, rela- 
tions and finite limitations, subjective and objective 
powers ; and what to do with them as neighboring 
factors co-acting with itself, etc. 

For I maintain that, when an outer force does 
but afford an opportunity for the conceptive and 
reconstructive efforts of mind, it cannot touch the 
latter with any, the faintest, trace of constraint; 
such an impossible constraint being nothing, in this 
regard, but a co-acting and subsidiary force pre- 
senting its meaning and mission, in its appointed 
way, and with proper sensorial emphasis, to the 
court of reason. 

I conclude, then, that thought has its initiative 
and role of action through its conditions, inner and 
outer, ever coming to a knowledge of both, and so 
developing powers of its own in the careful study 



ENVIKONMENT 41 

of what the one and the other is and does, in order 
to what it can do with them, in view of its own 
possibilities. And yet in order to any knowledge 
of powers within its reach it has to defer to the 
fundamental laws for affirming the facts, and so 
enlisting the powers of environment. It mnst go 
over the objects of knowledge, and make out the 
distinctions of an egoistical subject and an exterior 
object, remarking the powers, qualities, etc., of each. 

IV 

So far, I have been considering the power of 
environment, inner and outer. I turn, now, to that 
of mind. Its attitude toward sensations, and ani- 
mal appetites, how it made the acquaintance of 
its subjective environment, and laid hold upon its 
personal wants, and what would satisfy them, — 
all this has been briefly adverted to, as the argu- 
ment progressed. This great problem it succeeded 
in solving, and then set out along the path to re- 
moter and wider discoveries. It remains, now, to 
follow this inquisitive, restless person, as he makes 
his way out of himself into the regions beyond, 
and becomes, more and more, individual, personal, 
and human. 

He is a master spirit on the floor of the finite. 
As he makes progress by conscious and designed 
efforts, he is but keeping pace with the sequences 
of his thoughts. He does not part company with 
his environment, of whatever kind it may be, but 
keeps within the law for the interaction of thought 
and the powers which condition its exercise. He 



42 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

can react on his environment, and constrain it to 
serve his purposes to an extent limited only by the 
grasp of his conceptions. And, so far as he can 
relieve himself from the despotism of its blind 
forces (for it would be a remorseless despotism, if 
he could not affirm some power of thought to com- 
bat it), and act upon his knowledge, he is a law- 
giver unto himself, putting the force of his thought 
into his laws. 

And what we say of man applies to all animals, 
as far down as thought is a power in them, each 
and all modifying his environment, as each has 
power of mind to do it. And, therefore, would I 
affirm the irresistible conclusion that we are free, 
only as we can lay hold of power to lead out the 
forces of nature, and give them unwonted extension, 
— even an unwonted environment, — modifying her 
to the extent of the rational valuations made in 
aid of our cultivated wants. 

For it is in this way that mind, as conditioned, 
or even constrained, by what is not itself (and what 
is not thus constrained by the fundamental laws of 
being ?), acquires power to elicit facts, and resolving 
them into their logical and dynamical applications, 
connects this latter knowledge with our welfare, 
and so conditions the very things by which it is 
itself conditioned. 

But all this is in virtue of a law which, whilst it 
constrains thought to prescribed limits and func- 
tions, enables it to enter upon the latter, as a dis- 
cursive energy freely modifying, or else educing, 
the powers of things exterior. 



ENVIRONMENT 43 

With such a system of laws prevailing in the 
universe of matter and mind, and obvious to our 
contemplation, we may avail ourselves of their 
sanction, study their import, and extend their ap- 
plication to human interests. And we may do 
this, not simply from what we see of external 
nature, but because we have a penetrating insight 
into our own powers, and can act up to our insight. 

V 

We have just seen that matter and spirit are held 
fast to their limited spheres of action, each con- 
forming to a law which limits it to special functions. 
I mention further some other controlling facts. 

Every entity must act within the measure of its 
competency. And none can hold itself aloof from 
powers with which it must associate. An inviola- 
ble law for their interaction governs both the one 
and the other, exacting the most undeviating reci- 
procity of intercourse. In other words, each has 
its appointed way of acting, in deference to the ap- 
pointed ways of the communicating brotherhood of 
entities. 

For indeed, the way provided for a finite thing 
to act had to be conceived from the beginning by 
appointing a mode of interaction for a universe 
of things socially coordinated. And here, we are 
evoking that fundamental law of universal creation 
to which all things finite must conform. For every- 
thing, be it matter or spirit, is subordinated to the 
enabling laws which condition its existence and 
determine the sweep of its powers, compelling it, 



44 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

willy-nilly, to slip into the traces of the finite, un- 
der pain of a merciless extinction. If, then, thought 
is thus tensely conditioned, and therefore finite, 
both by the law for its special work, and that for 
the action of exterior entities, so, also, is matter, 
both by the law for its special work, and that for 
its commerce with discursive entities. 

It follows, therefore, that when things are put 
together, under a law for reciprocal co-action, they 
cannot act con^ra-socially. Hence, also, certain 
forces are called forth which express this feature 
of social intercourse. Moreover, what is finite 
cannot act as an outlaw, and so put at naught an 
all-embracing law of creation. For, as just now 
intimated, it can have command of its own special 
law of action, only by keeping within the scope of 
that wider law for interaction by virtue of which 
its own powers are unalterably apportioned and 
conditioned. And, therefore, may we say of our 
thought that it cannot break up any natural power, 
in order to its discursive work. 

Whenever it would essay any preconcerted work, 
it never runs counter to any law of nature. And 
the latter provides conditions, limitations, oppor- 
tunities, co-acting forces; furnishes, in fact, if not 
another, but non-conscious, intelligence, at least, a 
monumental record of creative thought, for com- 
munion with ours. For a law of nature is a 
thought of nature's God fixed in His work, an 
evidence of a superhuman mind, imperishable, and 
indisputable. 



ENVIRONMENT 45 



VI 

I may now append some general observations. 

It seems, then, that mind is a distinct immaterial 
essence, fledged with discursive competencies dis- 
tinctly individual, though mated with body, and in 
spite of innumerable powers which act upon it, 
from within and from without, and on which it 
must depend for a hold on its own resources. 

Yea, rnOre, I contend that, if you take away a 
single one of these co-acting familiars, you may so 
disrupt its original constitution that, in default of 
objects presented to its initial apprehension, and 
their ready and powerful cooperation, you would 
have little to apprehend primarily, and conse- 
quently, few, if any, objects for thought, and no 
power to conceive any. And so you could neither 
reason nor act, having nothing before you for 
thought or action, not one working efficient for 
proclaiming the soul immortal, or immaterial, or 
indeed making proclamation of anything, unless 
perchance knowledge should seek us out, and get 
itself pasted in our pate by some unimaginable 
process. 

I confess, though, that some of us are made pain- 
fully aware of our limitations and the power of 
our environment. We compare ourselves with our 
acquaintances, and take sorrow for our not having 
a better showing of mental power for our work 
upon the things that environ us. Yet, even we are 
well satisfied to have the soul furnished of God 
with His number of preexisting and coetaneous 



46 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

conditions and finite limitations ; yes, satisfied to 
have mind and brain so put together that there will 
be a well-established concomitance between a phys- 
ical object acting within the brain and the counter- 
action of conception and judgment within the mind, 
— the brain mediating molecular and mechanical 
excitations ; the mind, ideas, volitions, deeds, etc., 
etc. 

Distinctions reserved for the next chapter will 
give all needed qualification of previous statements. 



CHAPTER VI 
Thought a Free Single 



This chapter is an anticipation of the main facts 
that enter into the succeeding ones. I propose, 
however, to offer some thoughts which, lying within 
the scope of the general subject, may be advanced 
in connection with the preceding discussions. 

But now I wish to inquire briefly, how thought 
is, or becomes, a free single. 

I remark, first, that things are single, by reason 
of distinctive characters of their own. Indeed, 
what is void of such characters is emptied of every 
feature of existence. It must have either material 
or immaterial constituents to avouch a nature pecul- 
iar to itself, as well as divergent from other en- 
tities. The tiniest molecule of the most impalpable 
gas has its full complement of characteristic ele- 
ments, features, attributes, etc., to give it distin- 
guishing individuality. Lacking these, it is nil. 

Now, in this regard, and for the same reasons, 
thought is set apart from all other things by an 
appointed variety of uniquely significant attributes. 
It is hence a free single, by virtue of specific traits, 
which forbid its confounding with other things. 
For what is conception and responsible choice can 
47 



48 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

never be commuted into material consecutions and 
transformations. The inhibition is absolute and 
thoroughgoing. Thought is a free single. 

II 

I pass, now, to a point which concerns the first 
contact of thought with sensations. 

As already adverted to, we have a nervous system 
which subserves mental functions through the sensa- 
tions which it presents to mind, primarily as with- 
out significance, until mind has mediated their 
import. 

As such, they are the first exterior objects held 
up before mind for its apprehension. 

I am careful to note that these sensations (though 
at the first, they may not be full clearly differen- 
tiated by their characteristic marks) are but the 
means to the peculiar procedures of thought, their 
special office being that of bringing up the latter 
to its birth, and the assumption of its intellectual 
prerogatives. 

But, now that we have thought thus aroused 
into a state of conscious intelligence and wakeful- 
ness, we should bear in mind that it is not a being 
of sensations only, and conscious only of these. It 
is more. Yov it has a being and activities of its 
own, as individual as any set of distinctive char- 
acters can insulate one thing from another. 

We are now considering sensations in order to 
their contrast with the conscious intelligence that 
perceives them. 

ka modes <>r body, they are as truly outer to the 



THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 49 

mind as the flow of the blood, or the growth of the 
hair, the only difference being that one is conceived 
sooner than the other exteriority. As such modes, 
they all come within reach of some power of mind, 
and so when the latter takes them in hand, we have 
to witness another power at work, an energy that 
gives us a different result. For, in order to our hav- 
ing any physical phenomena reported by and held 
in mind, we must needs transform them into cogni- 
tions or psychical achievements. And, therefore, 
may we say that what makes a sensation a mode of 
body is a physical organism, and what cuts it away 
from the physics of brain or body is a mental 
organism with cognitive powers of its own. But 
when once a fact of mind, it is no longer a cerebral 
sensation. It is a spent sensorial excitation, and 
cannot be reconstructed — unless, indeed, we in- 
duce its repetition experimentally. 

Now, if I am right in these speculations, the 
child, shortly after birth, has many sensations, 
intellections, and emotions confronting each other, 
and interacting as diverse factors. The result is 
the pronounced first stoppings of thought. It per- 
ceives the sensation, and, so, acquires an idea of it, 
in response to the sensorial impression. But this 
response is only an affirmation of the existence of 
an exterior disturbance ; for mere perception affirms 
only the existence of an object, as hereinafter to be 
explained. 

But this is an act of mind setting out with the 
first appearance of sensation, giving it some cogni- 
tive attention. Here, an illustration of this diver- 



50 TIIE POWER OF THOUGHT 

sity, and severalty, of mind and sensation, may be 
profitably pondered. The latter is to the former 
what the earth is to our power of locomotion. We 
can by no means take a step without a support to 
our feet. Still, the ground, as a pedestrian plat- 
form, is altogether dissimilar to locomotion on its 
surface. 

Ill 

The requirements of the problem impel us to 
notice a much wider diversity between a sensation, 
and, say, an induction, as a distinctive achievement 
of a free, and several, energy. 

A sensation, if only perceived, is but an observed 
fact discovered in the animal sensorium. Whereas, 
a conception is the tension of the teleological reason 
upon a sensorial perturbation, in order to that 
broader knowledge of what can be affirmed of its 
bearing on our personal welfare. 

Let me illustrate this, also. 

If a grain of wheat die, it is replaced by a 
similar grain. But, if a sensation die, it is not re- 
placed by another sensation. Something wholly 
different is turned up, namely, either a simple idea, 
as in perception, or else, some conviction or concep- 
tion that is constructive of the strictly human 
wants caught up from wider rational processes. 
Ami, herein again, thought is seen to be a free 
single. As an excitation in the sensorium, a sensa- 
tion is, I repeat, an object upon which thought can 
rest, but when simply perceived it arrests atten- 
tion, only to its presence, in loco; and, thereupon, 



THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 51 

thought initiates, after its own way, that nietamor- 
phic scrutiny which certifies the marks and rational 
make-up of the things interviewed, and how they 
can be availed of, as discoveries interwoven with 
the discovery of our responsible interests. 

Whereupon, as soon as a sensation discharges 
its office, it is displaced by a different factor. 
And forasmuch as this latter is a consciously in- 
telligent energy, it will proceed to acts of con- 
ception and volition had in conscious contrast 
with acts not its own, whether sensational or 
not. 

I am explaining mind by the marks that give 
it an individuality of its own, as seen when bat- 
tling with, or else making use of, forces found in 
the field of environment, inner and outer. 

If we were only conscious, all we could know 
would be that modification of the brain, called a 
sensation, and consequently, all we could do 
would be to observe, without discrimination, such 
phenomena as find their way into the sensorium. 
Moreover, if we could not acquire those afore- 
mentioned constructive informations which go to 
build up and conserve our educated requirements, 
such meagre knowledge as that of a mere sen- 
sation, consciously, but witlessly, affirmed, would 
stand, it may be at the threshold of, but certainly, 
exterior to, the precincts of the logical understand- 
ing. It is to be remarked that I am stating 
nothing but the child's, or, for that matter, man's 
honest outlook in the presence of sensations, 
whose more simple elements, such an one may 



52 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

not, at any time and for any reason, be able to 
discover. 

Indeed, to be conscious only of what transpires 
in the sensorium is to be like one who, having 
had no previous experience of sonorons vibrations, 
becomes suddenly aware of some fine music 
played for his benefit. The sonorous visitation 
is certainly very uncanny. Something so unde- 
fined is poking at him such a storm of bewilder- 
ing fuss ! His apperceptions are set ajar by the 
crankiest emotions of surprise, fear, and wonder 
at the anomalous intrusion ! What is that music 
to him in such a state of perplexity and pale 
affright ? Is it some rude decussation of the audi- 
tory nerves ? Or, is it an irruption of ill-boding 
monsters from the regions beyond? Or, again, 
will he take it as an undifferentiated sound, a mere 
noise, or thud? The situation is enigmatical. 
However, the rational centre will in due time 
succeed in resolving all these enigmas of sensa- 
tion into conceptions vitally connected with our 
maturing wants and educed susceptibilities. 

Wherefore, in reliance upon the foregoing state- 
ments, I submit that we have some facts placed 
beyond controversy. We have an exterior power 
working upon the sensorial centre and landing 
there an impression called a sensation, but, never- 
theless, on condition of another power with un- 
coil founding functions of its own going forward 
to meet this exterior power, giving it vogue, as 
a sensorial individuality contrasting with the cog- 
nitive power. But this latter power, because of 



THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 53 

its conscious intelligence, undertakes to inter- 
pret and publish what the exterior one is, and 
does ; acquiring, in time, the power to trans- 
form a purely physical excitation in the senso- 
rium into the transcendent facts and acts of a 
voluntary and responsible actor. 

Now, herein, again, we have the stamp and mark 
of a free single with voluntary resources of its own, 
in contrast with one which it affirms to be exterior 
and involuntary. 

IV 

But, if thought be a single entity, is it voluntary ? 
Can it surmount the mechanics of the brain and 
act on achievements of its own ? And how ? 
These questions will receive a hurried passing 
notice, in order to prevent our misconceiving its 
nature or functions. 

For, if mind is but a big pocket for storing away 
the raw materials of sensation; if to know blue, 
we have to take the pigment of the sky and stuff 
it bodily within the centre of cognition ; if we have 
to clutch sound and tumble it about in the audito- 
rium ; if the rose, itself, has to be felt within the 
soul, instead of being aesthetically affirmed and 
appreciated ; if it takes this to give us a knowledge 
of personal (emotional and voluntary) power to de- 
termine our acts, — then we can never, at all, get it. 

But, if, by divine appointment, we can act cog- 
nitively on exterior things, when they are acting 
dynamically on oar sensor organs ; if to know 
them is to make their acquaintance and make up 



54 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

our lnind what to do with them, and what to do 
with ourselves ; that is to say, if knowledge is the 
appropriation and appreciation of some facts, plus 
a judgment of what we shall do with them, then, 
we can know, and do even as we know. For indeed, 
we can know nothing of anything, save as thought 
gains power to discover the rational evidences that 
betray what it is, and to certify them as finds seen 
to be promotive of our responsible ends. 

Now, I claim for thought that, from the very be- 
ginning, it has to discover and appropriate all the 
informations on which it acts, and that it acts on 
the force of the reasons acquired in the exercise of 
its cognitive, and logical, resources, and that, if it 
has to acquire these informations in order to power 
over its own acts, it is a free and several unit, with 
power to propound a work exact to the thoughts 
that determine it ; the result being that, when brain 
brings a physical irritation (here sensation) within 
reach of the mind's explorative purview, the latter 
can, in turn, set to work upon that object, and 
achieve what is denied to the former; namely, 
thoughts, revelations of discursive power, etc. 

And here, again, I repeat, we have the same old 
entities confronting each other, with powers pecul- 
iar to each, one material, the other immaterial and 
free by a divine right to its own discoveries. 



I continue our analysis in order to bring up some 
other aspects of the problem. I have remarked 
upon the success of thought in capturing informa- 



THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 55 

tions. But after all, what will it do with, them, 
and wherefore do ? The explanation is evident. If 
it has been at pains to acquire knowledges, it will be 
at pains to discover what to do with them. It will 
see a reason for taking advantage of all it knows. 

Here, then, we have a discursive entity which, 
when about to enter upon a given work, must study 
the conditions of the problem : what is a furtherance, 
and what a hindrance ; what is to be the effect on it- 
self and other things when the act is done, and what 
deliberate conclusion will finally determine choice 
and personal responsibility for an act that may, or 
may not, be done. For its acts are determined by 
reasons, and, if so, it is a free cause, and as distinctly 
individual as significant traits can make it. 

And here, we may not overlook, in passing, the 
marked feature of interest thought takes in its own 
ways and work, not seldom contrasting itself, as an 
aggressive and responsible energy, with things not 
itself. We have many facts like the following: 
What are our powers in the presence of all these 
sensational exteriorities, or, else, how shall we lead 
out, or otherwise evade, the forces of nature, when 
hostile? But these are questions for an immate- 
rial, constructive, individual, and personal energy. 
And, if it can propound such questions, or for that 
matter, any question, it is not only free, but, in 
affirming such powers and prerogatives, in contrast 
with others which it would control, or combat, it is, 
in fact, affirming itself a free single. For, such a 
propounder must know that he has powers of his 
own, and that he can develop, out of his own re- 



56 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

sources, a plan, or concept, of work which, he can 
accomplish. 

And, here again, we have plan, deliberation, 
nerve, personal interest, self-command, and execu- 
tive ability, — the very essentials of a voluntary 
and several power. 

VI 

I conclude with a brief study of the objection 
that matter, or physics, in some of its forms, has 
power to coerce a free, or voluntary, activity. That 
our bodily organs deliver up to mind external im- 
pressions, I have cheerfully conceded, from the 
beginning. I now affirm that these impressions, be 
they ever so vehement when acting normally, are 
but a preliminary and, so, only an exciting cause 
ministering to mind, never an efficient cause born 
with discursion and volition ; that matter and phys- 
ics can do many things for me, in order to what I 
can do myself, and that having done all they can 
for me, I am left free to fall back upon my own 
resources, and act with cognitive efficiency. 

There is, and can be, no clashing of principles of 
action between the two. 

Besides having a nature of its own, the child is 
fenced in with external forces and constitutive re- 
sources, from birth. It is, as before explained, an or- 
ganism of mind and external organs acting together, 
; n id interacting with a world of outside entities 
when brought into communication, in pursuance of 
a Fundamental ordinance which confines both within 
Impassable barriers. 



THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 57 

The acceptance of these facts silences all cavil. 
Indeed, the best certified, fundamental fact of the 
universe is, that mind (our sole witness for any 
fact) is so declarative of its severalty and discursive 
freedom, that matter is an affirmed and accredited 
exterior potency solely on the former's reportorial 
authority. 

But now, if it report matter and physics as an 
outer something with an equipment of powers not 
at all cognitive, it must, for a stronger reason, re- 
port itself as another something with cognitive and 
reporting competencies. 

Hence, the conclusion is irresistible that a sensa- 
tion as a physical cause having its departure out- 
side of mind, is never in any condition to act as a 
discursive cause issuing from the mind alone. But 
even though it be an outsider, it can act on the for- 
mer, and at times very violently, as an exterior 
cause, but never as a conscious energy formulated 
by the thinker. It may co-act with mind, but it 
cannot displace the co-acting agent. 

In all I have heretofore said, it is to be under- 
stood that I have been regarding thought and its 
exteriorities as co-acting factors engaged in a com- 
mon work. I am not debating problems growing 
out of certain pathological conditions which over- 
power the volitional efficiencies of thought. For, 
if you put a club into the hands of sensation, the 
valor of the bravest thought will have to succumb 
to the assault. Sensation must be full-witted and 
normal, lest thought be driven from the field. 



Paet II 

THE ACQUISITION OP KNOWLEDGE 



CHAPTEE VII 
The Cradle of Thought 

In former chapters I have aimed to give thought 
a conscious freedom in the presence of sensations, 
environment, etc. I am now to regard it as a prov- 
ident, watchful, and active energy, gathering power 
as it gathers ideas. Of course, what it does cannot 
be a work of its own, unless freely gone upon. And 
if freely gone upon, its achievements must found 
on antecedents running back to childhood. And, 
therefore, should we make a study of the child as 
it is being trained in the universe of thought, if 
we are ever to have anything approaching a true 
account of free determinations. 

The child acts as it thinks. 

u When I was a child, I spake as a child, I thought 
as a child, but when I became a man, I put away 
childish things." 

Childish things are indeed put away, but in all 
essentials of mind and mind-power, the child and 
man are one ; the same person who thinks and acts 
as a child, thinks and acts as a man. The continu- 
ity of free discursion is unbroken from infancy to 
old age. The mature man is but a renewal of and 
advance upon, his immature self. And, therefore, 
if it be but this founding of effort on previous ef- 
61 



G2 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

forts; this growth upon previous growth; a con- 
scious advance upon, and because of, previous ones, 
we are driven to regard the conscious antecedents 
of the child as of prime importance, demanding 
careful scrutiny. And this I propose to give in 
what follows. 



It were desirable to have our former self present 
before us. The pen may fail of doing justice to 
such a personage. And, therefore, would I invoke 
collaborators to institute a searching re-discussion 
of this much neglected branch of psychology. I 
begin with a common formula which Avill express 
in)" views, when taken in reference to the growth 
and birth of thought : " The child is father to the 
man." 

How true ! The mature man has no other father. 
But the paternity is unlike ordinary generation; 
the ancestor is ever along, and one with, the issue. 

Inasmuch, then, as the child is thus our father, 
and ever one with us, are we not, therefore, hedged 
in with a very proximate and tight-fitting heredity ? 
And should we not feel like renewing his acquaint- 
ance and recalling his acts; remembering that, in 
recalling them, we are depicting the lineaments of 
our former selves ? 

The child was our earliest teacher, an active 
explorer of rarest originality, but what he taught 
was what we ourselves discovered. He sought out 
things within and without, and, as his wit sharp- 
ened, he ventured boldly on a boundless field of 



THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 63 

exploration. He would make inquisition of every- 
thing; peering anxiously into the unknown. In 
the very beginning he manifested strong rational 
proclivities, and soon thereafter thought began its 
active mission. In a moment he awoke to con- 
scious life and its struggles. Thenceforward he 
was committed to a career of thought and personal 
effort wherein he wrought out knowledge and 
gained power from every quarter. And when he 
came to think, he clearly perceived that he was a 
power unto himself, in virtue of his own discover- 
ies. Modest, artless, confiding, but open-eyed and 
expectant, at the start, he becomes, in time, a pro- 
nounced, self-reliant energy, dotting the centuries 
with a galaxy of deeds. 

We cannot interrogate too faithfully these initial 
acts of our child-father. For if he is the parent of 
our present intelligence, we are now standing on 
what we did as a child. And we are now partakers 
of these first things of his mind through the 
rational discoveries that made them ours in the 
past. 

II 

Here I give place to a few remarks on what is 
now made rudimentary to our hands in the teach- 
ings of psychologists. 

What are the child's distinctive qualifications ? 

(1) As to its nature. It is furnished with 
mental capacities and physical organs, the latter 
presenting impressions in the brain, many, if not 
most, of which come from the outer world. The eye, 



64 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

ear, etc., are physical functionaries having widely- 
disparate peculiarities and objectives. Each is con- 
cerned with a work rigorously its own, but together 
presenting all our diverse sensations within reach 
of mind. 

(2) Now, a word or two in respect of the inter- 
action of the two. Our native mental faculties ex- 
ist, at first, as mere germs. But soon, some facts 
are won which arrest attention, and so promote 
the growth of thought. In this way begins that 
life-long intercourse between mind and those physi- 
cal perturbations called sensations, an intercourse 
which trains the former to such a knowledge of 
rational marks or evidences as will produce convic- 
tion, and power of choice, and action. 

(3) Remark the mode and manner of intercourse 
between these two friendly parties. 

Matter has to be in a position to be interviewed. 
Mind prepares to make its acquaintance. They 
begin to exchange civilities. When the former im- 
pacts mind, the latter takes conscious interest in 
its visitor, and what manner of creature it may be. 
One is a conscious force, the other, unconscious. 
The task of the latter is to present phenomena for 
the former's scrutiny, and, thereupon, the former 
begins the work of prying into their contents. 

For mind is a conscious, curious, impulsive 
energy, ready for a venture of some kind, and 
much given to active exploration. It is neither a 
phase, nor a mode, nor an activity of matter. It 
is simply a discoverer of facts, or informations, 
which it would employ in constructing for itself a 



THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 65 

life of educated wants and satisfactions. It has no 
extra-cognitive way of doing anything. It is not 
inspired. Its office is to examine God's works, and 
trace their rational coordinations ; communing with 
His mind, and thus affirming ideas, judgments, con- 
victions, etc., on evidence for them. I am restrict- 
ing mind to its capabilities. It knows nothing 
outside of acts of seeing, judging, affirming, and 
doing. It is never helped by an intuition, or any 
such lawless divinity, outside of a rational apper- 
ception of phenomena on sufficient evidence (if in- 
deed any intuition can be in anywise distinct from 
perception). Truth is never so ready made that it 
can be grasped as furnished knowledge. What is 
apprehended, or conceived, or known, comes of the 
mind's power to discover and judge for itself. 

And in this connection I invite attention to a 
fundamental law of thought. We can never do 
justice to freedom, or morality, unless we concede 
that we have both through our power to evoke all 
knowledge by rational processes from the begin- 
ning, discovering and acting on, and with, what we 
discover. 

Yes, it does look unpromising to initiate thought, 
on occasion of first locking it out of all informa- 
tion. Still, it has no other way open for a dis- 
covery of its unique powers. It begins, face to 
face, with a boundless realm of things unknown, 
and, for an instant, may stare blindly at the be- 
wildering enigma. But, as will appear hereafter, 
this inexorable fact solves the whole problem of 
free determinations. 



66 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 



III 

The methods employed by the child in seeking 
knowledge seem to demand a somewhat careful 
exposition. 

It is conscious and logical from its first start in 
the field of discovery. We have seen that it plants 
itself on the power to judge, on evidence. Its life 
is not one of sheer physical, and vital, awareness. 
There lies, back of this, quite another endowment, 
which comes into action as soon as sensations 
appear in the sensorium, and is brought fully to 
birth in the first acts of judgment. 

The child has rational powers, and acts ration- 
ally. It is not shut up to an incipient rationality 
wherein it is simply receptive of sensations. It is 
an egoistical personage, walking in the light of 
what it can see and do for itself. It ponders the 
informations gathered from all corners of the uni- 
verse, and then adopts a line of conduct begotten 
of some reason or choice which fixes the responsi- 
bility upon itself; for choice carries the responsible 
soul along with the thought which decides his acts. 

Thus far, our child-father is seen to make fair 
progress. But further. If knowledge is power, 
he has that power, and must impress himself on 
things about him. 

And so far as he does this, he is a creative energy, 
made so by projecting the force of his thought into 
what he does. 

But I may not anticipate discussions reserved for 
particular treatment. 



THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 67 



IV 

It is not my purpose to give a detailed account 
of what the child does at this early period. But 
its mind is not slow to act; and I may mention, 
therefore, some few of its first acts. Here, then, is 
something that touches its soul with a sensation, or 
a feeling. This physical excitation, named sensa- 
tion, has been presented in the sensorium, and 
thought begins its investigation. The result, so 
far, is that we have both sensation and its instant 
apprehension, and, let me add, some wildering emo- 
tion not as yet securely defined. 

We are to bear in mind that the child is just set- 
ting out on its first voyage of discovery, and there- 
fore, such purely perceptive finds as it then makes, 
are a surprise to its infantile intelligence, and so 
cannot call forth its more thoughtful resources. A 
brute has sensation, perception, and the concomi- 
tant emotions, and sits easy in its duller ways. 
On the contrary, the child has a soul a little too 
human to be content with a mere perception, and 
that densest personal response Avhich we call an 
undefined emotion. His human judgment begins 
to act, as it affirms and gathers ideas, and by a 
slow, but steady growth, secures an unfailing flow 
of rational and moral convictions and emotions. 
Of course, on attaining to manhood, his mental 
powers are more widely constructive and service- 
able. 

Here I venture another remark relevant to the 
emergence of these initial phenomena when first 



68 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

presented to the child. If any one can get back 
of sensations, perceptions, and the emotions thereto 
belonging, and show me that we come to this knowl- 
edge without resorting to some act of judgment, be 
it ever so infantile, then, I shall have to confess to 
a brief interval in the earliest efforts of mind, in 
which its powers go forth in the tumult of disorder. 
But this would adjourn the birth of thought only 
a moment. Indeed, I am inclined to the belief that, 
at the moment of birth, and in the freshness and 
ferment among the mob of sensations, perceptions, 
and emotions, simultaneously on hand, the child 
might not have time to frame a judgment squarely 
rational; but, for that matter, it could not then 
have had time accurately to square such factors 
according to any rule. We therefore give the child 
a childish mental start, and argue from that, and not 
from a previous, nebulous period, if there be any. 

As a matter of course, among the very first 
rational apprehensions, are those by which the child 
perceives its own acts. And though these may not 
be very conspicuously marked by the feature of 
alternative choice, yet, so far as they involve the 
slightest attention and judgment, the act is both 
rational and voluntary. No one will question this. 
But indeed, if I am not mistaken in affirming the 
simultaneous irruption of sensation, perception, 
ami some little emotion, there must be some faint 
glimmerings of choice involved in comparing phe- 
nomena so disparate that the feature of diversity 
could not be eliminated without an act of judg- 
ment discriminating and comparing the diverse 



THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 69 

traits affirmed. And hence the conclusion that 
neither sensations, nor perceptions, nor emotions, 
can ever become the child's own rational achieve- 
ments, until they are made rational constituents of 
his soul by the power to know and judge them. 

In this connection I pause to consider those un- 
defined emotions which arise on occasion of our 
first knowledge of sensations, and move the child 
to act before it can take firm hold upon its rational 
resources. 

With idiots, the power of reason is either smoth- 
ered, or else a total blank. And when this is the 
case, the sole antecedents to action are, as a rule, sen- 
sations, and the equally agnostic emotions. Such an- 
tecedents are, therefore, necessitating causes. The 
same considerations may apply to the child when 
all its rational powers are in a state of nascent incu- 
bation. But when the clarifying power of thought 
sets in, one would think that the child could remark 
the blind strivings of its vagrant emotions. And 
this it does, to a degree, at the earliest moment after 
it has, once for all, begun to reason. For, whenever 
it can take up distinct informations, it will act 
rationally, and be emotioned accordingly, never 
more relapsing into a plane of action where, seeing 
and feeling darkly, it must act as it is seeing and 
feeling. Remark, now, the drift of my exposition. 
I have granted that, at birth, sensations, emotions, 
etc., are so utterly new that the child may not know 
their import, and so not see what to do. And if it 
could not see clearly what to do, it could not have 
any well-defined, rational emotion, however much 



70 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

it might be impressed by the sudden entrance of 
perturbations, then almost wholly vital and ani- 
mal. 

Now, the truth is that such, raw sensations and 
emotions are in a marginal zone of indefinite and 
indeterminate cognition, and are there, because 
needed to stimulate effort during the formative 
period. 

Perception of such phenomena, at that time, is 
necessarily only an inchoate cognition. But, as 
before explained, thought begins to make their 
acquaintance, and thinking gives definite informa- 
tions, and accordant, definite emotions, — voluntary 
propulsion and responsible conduct, — a type of 
transformations quite foreign to merely physical 
and vital causes and effects. For, just as soon as 
the soul becomes rational, it becomes personal, and 
soon thereafter moral, having knowledge and the 
corresponding emotions as guiding and impelling 
factors in act or deed. 



It remains now to explain, more particularly, 
what the child is doing, when busied with the task 
of affirming and discriminating the things about it. 
The materials for this discussion are ready to hand. 

The mother is one of the first objects to arrest its 
attention. It touches her, and sees where it touches. 
It clings to her, muscularly. whilst taking in her 
superficies and the indications of life and love 
detected in her movements, voice, etc. It would 
I now the significance of all these sensational phe- 



THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 71 

nomena. But at one and the same time, it is re- 
garding, contrasting, coordinating, and appreciating 
muscular, auditory, tactile, visual, gustatory, and 
lactile sensations, besides those of deglutition, etc. 
For, as it is nourished on her breast, it is beholding 
her person and countenance, hearing her voice and 
receiving her caresses, etc., etc., with the eager 
interest of a neophyte. 

And these, and similar, experiences are repeated, 
again and again, with variations innumerable. It 
has never one sensation by itself. The tribunal 
of cognition and judgment never adjourns. The 
onward flow of informations never subsides, and 
each item is a discovery that lends power to discover 
more. The nurse ; father, mother, brothers, and 
sisters ; the cat, the dog, the chair ; the light from 
the window, the slam of the door, the fall of foot- 
steps, the rose, the cherry, the peach, — each and 
all enchain its attention. Its feet are cold; the 
nurse warm; the chair is hard; the peach soft. 
It smells a bright rose, and tastes a red cherry. It 
sees the quiet blue, or else the stimulating tints of 
the bird whose song thrills its soul with unutterable 
raptures. If the bird perch on its hand it is wooed 
with regardful eyes and gentle attentions. Its 
body, build, Aveight, shape, etc., are distinctly 
affirmed. It is seen to be alive, and tremulous with 
vital and muscular movements. The intermittent 
pulsations proceeding from a thing of life are set 
off against the less sympathetic visitations of dead 
matter. The bird sings, and it discriminates the 
song from mechanical sound. 



72 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

And the child ponders all these things with deep- 
ening interest, for they bedew its sonl with the light 
of reason. It remarks any dissimilarities, and ad- 
judges different traits to be traits of different things, 
as distinctly different as sensations from thought, or 
its power. It separates one thing from another, and, 
as I have said, frames a judgment founded on their 
discrepant characters. And, herein, it has excogi- 
tated the idea of an individual thing, by its pecul- 
iar marks, distinguishing things different by marks 
which they do not hold in common. 

From hence, we may see how our child-father 
came to have the idea of things different ; of self 
and not self ; of matter, mind, and their characteris- 
tic and contrasting attributes, etc., and how lie cor- 
related ideas with things different by remarking 
and identifying the diverse features found in each. 
And having acquired all these and manifold other 
informations, he must have also acquired the idea 
of a self-conscious, intelligent, personal power and 
agency which is his, and not of the things about 
him. 

And so we all have been going to school in that 
world-wide university built of God, where all His 
children prepare for the plunge into business, and 
a life of choice and fearful responsibility. And we 
all took the same thought-forming and judgmeni- 
training courses in original research. 

Ah, those inspiring school-days of twenty or 
twenty-five years we once had in our Father's 
house, preparing for the battle of life and thought! 
We set out to discover a universe of things about 



THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 73 

us, and we brought back a correct report of all we 
had mind to discover ! And we were helped with 
many a corrective hint, being born again unto the 
power of knowledge ! 

And the child is father to the man. 



CHAPTER VIII 
Perceptive Presentations 



Perceptions are the first discursive acts of the 
child. 

It has been explained that, soon after it is born 
it has quite a large assemblage of objects in hand 
to arrest its attention, some within itself and some 
without. Moved by a God-given curiosity, it begins 
their study, immediately. But it imports thence 
only an account of what it discovers. As rational, 
it goes out to investigate phenomena, and, coming 
into contact with some sensorial perturbations, it 
affirms and certifies these perturbations, and so 
returns with nothing but an affirmation of what it 
has seen, achieving thus an idea or cognition of, 
say, taste, sound, touch, smell, etc., and it names 
this perturbation, so perceived, a sensation. 

This and its like, is the sum total of what it 
achieves in an act of perception, external or inter- 
nal. It perceives, or fetches, the notion of a some- 
thing it has interviewed. Or, in other words, wc 
may say: Some kind of an energy, which is not 
that of our thought, is at work in one of our sensor 
organs, producing an impression there. We remark 
this impression, and name it a sensation. But the 
74 



PERCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 75 

act of affirming a sensation we call perception. 
Or, to change our perspective slightly, we may say : 
A change is going on in one of our sensor organs, 
and we certify this change, by passing a judg- 
ment on some of its more obvious traits (for what 
has none is imperceptible). And so we say, off 
hand : Well, here is a something whose acts we are 
witnessing and affirming. And we dub the phe- 
nomena, thus witnessed and affirmed, a sensation; 
and this report of what we saw is perception, or our 
readiest cognition, affirming and avouching what we 
have discovered through one or more of our senses. 

Similar remarks, mutatis mutandis, apply to acts 
of the observing intelligence. Here, we are cogniz- 
ing our own thoughts, perceiving or affirming ideas, 
discursions, or operations, of the mind itself. 

You observe that all the mind has gained is an 
idea, or affirmation of the thing interviewed. Per- 
ception, then, is a certification and presentation of 
the ideas uncovered in the simplest inspection of 
objects. 

At a later stage, and on deeper study, mind may 
succeed in extending its report; perceiving, and 
presenting additional ideas sought out of a universe 
of things to be known by their identifying traits. 

You see, I am only giving thought its first outing 
in quest of informations, and speaking, solely, of 
the first ideas gained by the readiest cognition of 
things, that is to say, by perception. It is under- 
stood, too, that I am not attempting to separate 
perfectly what is due to percejMion, and what to 
conception ; a feat more obstructive than profitable. 



THE POWER OF THOUGHT 



II 

I now bespeak an attentive consideration of what 
thought does when achieving its first cognitions. 

I repeat, for perception, that it simply affirms an 
object, or else some attribute of the object, be it a 
sensation, emotion, or any mental operation. For, 
when we are perceiving, we are framing our first 
mental outline or report of the object. 

And this is our briefest tale, or announcement, 
of what we have discovered, and it is but a frag- 
ment of the abundant informations reached by the 
more thorough explorations of the logical under- 
standing. 

I have also explained that every act of percep- 
tion founds on an act of judgment which identifies 
the object by its complement of distinctive marks. 
It is, therefore, a rational discovery, and because 
rational, it is reported as such, and kept in store for 
further scrutiny, and in order to a comparison with 
other ideas with which it is seen to affiliate. 

Among the first ideas acquired are perceptions 
of self, as actively thoughtful, affected and emo- 
tioned; ideas of both body and spirit, and the 
source whence they come; some, pointing to an 
exterior object, others, to the conscious energy, 
and its activities. 

We have seen that the child's own soul, and all 
its surroundings, engage its attention with the 
prompt impressiveness of things, new and wonder- 
ful. Ami so, being consciously curious, if not 
touchingly verdant, from the outset, it cannot 



PERCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 77 

escape attempting some idea of itself, as active and 
affected. And I feel that I can venture to say that 
it has also a special train of ideas connected with 
itself, snch as those of bewilderment, uncertainty, 
fear, and fearfnl suspense, and many such like ; all 
which is this same idea of self in a state of emo- 
tion which springs from the almost agnostic begin- 
nings of its cognitive explorations. 

I am not now descanting upon the difficulty it 
must have had in achieving the distinct affirmation 
of sensations. It remains to point out that if it 
had the emotions referred to above (and if alive at 
all, it must have had them), then, it must also have 
had the ideas (be they ever so nebulously formu- 
lated) on which to found them, but both ideas and 
emotions caught up in an instant of startling initia- 
tion well-nigh confounding. 

Only a moment ago, I mentioned the fact that 
the mind itself is variously affected by the diver- 
gent ideas caught up from the spectacle of outward 
and inward phenomena, and that these variant ideas 
beget corresponding emotions. 

Now, in contemplating the phenomena of various 
emotions the mind will not confound one with 
another, but will distinguish each by its several 
characters, and thus discretely separate what idea 
it may have of each emotion from others of the 
brotherhood, eliminating, finally, a faint first 
thought of their implication in our personal econ- 
omy, and so on, distinguishing ideas and emotions 
from themselves, and from each other, as different 
objects isolated by marks of contrariety. 



78 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

Mind alone perceives, and, therefore, delivers, or 
presents, ideas of sensations, etc., and, because it 
is emotioned at those ideas, it grasps a new type 
of ideas; namely, those of the emotions which 
answer to the call of the ideas previously pre- 
sented. Now, as otherwise stated, all this is 
perception, on the apprehension of the mental 
contraposition of idea as an affirmed cognition, and 
idea as an affirmed impulse, or emotion, transpiring 
in the soul. 

And in this, mind is a discoverer, identifying, 
and affirming its finds by the swiftest inspection of 
their contents. 

Moreover, it is to be observed that perception, 
here as everywhere, concerns a concrete object 
whose elements await separation by the elaborating 
processes of analysis and methodical abstraction. 
Yet, because they come together as idea and emo- 
tion, thought and its personal force, you cannot 
perceive the one without perceiving the other. 

Thought affirms the things of itself, and external 
nature, and reports what it saw and felt. And this 
is about all it does in an act of perception. And 
so we may conclude that every idea of self, or not 
self, is born of some judgment founded on evi- 
dence. And if so, then this briskest resource of 
mind must play an important part, to say the least, 
in avouching the ideas to be availed of by its more 
deliberate processes. 



CHAPTER IX 

Supplementary Statements 



Looking now toward a final view of the office of 
sensations in respect of perception, and regarding 
them at the time when they swim into the mind's 
horizon, we may ask : What are they, then, to the 
mind? I repeat, they are wholly a surprise and 
confusion ; the mind at that earliest period of juve- 
nescence affirming only this. 

An illustration may serve to make this plain: 
We are in the presence of some seemingly unbal- 
anced providence, disclosing, say, whimsical, erratic, 
and stunning accompaniments. What are we to do 
with it? We cannot divine the rationale of the 
thing. We are dazed. Such an astonishment is 
quite beyond our thinking. And the hideous por- 
tent remains relentless, until we get a firm hold on 
its meaning or mission ; get some firm grip on the 
ideas of the portent-maker. 

Now, it is just so with the first coming sensations 
of a child. They are portents, until relieved by 
a discovery of some idea which will dispel the 
mystery. 

And never until we can frame some first conject- 
ure, and so have some theory of their meaning, 
79 



80 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

and, it may be, remove some of their darker con- 
notations, can they be aught to us but the direst 
confusion resulting from our ignorance. Thought 
dispels the mystery. 

Again, sensation is a manifestation of physical 
power cooperating with that of mind. It may be 
a monster of dynamics in its w r ay. It can deliver 
a physical irritation in the sensorium with faultless 
precision, but never an idea. It cannot overstep 
the despotism of its limitations, any more than 
mind can usurp its functions and discharge its 
offices. While, for its part, the latter can see a 
sensation, remark its character, and report accord- 
ingly, the former, in turn, has no power to report 
anything in terms of the co-active, discursive fac- 
tor. Its office is to present a perturbation in one 
of our sense centres. It has to remain an impal- 
pable factor, unknowing and unknown, an unbal- 
anced visitation, a portent, until mind evolves the 
story-telling ideas that solve the riddle. 

II 

The preceding discussions have led me to remark 
upon the simultaneous emergence of sensation and 
its perception: brain presenting physical impres- 
sions, and mind perceiving them; perception and 
sensorial perturbations taking place co-actively and 
coetaneously. 

But we may further consider this problem of per- 
ception, and its exteriorities, from another point 
of view: All these sensor impressions are invol- 
untary. 



SUPPLEMENTAKY STATEMENTS 81 

Consider the sense of hearing, for a moment. 
The ear is so constructed that it conveys an exter- 
nal vibration to the inner sensoriuni, causing there 
a physical irritation, or perturbation. Here, the 
immediate object perceived is this irritation, an 
object presented by the auditory organ, not by the 
mind. This physical object, so presented, is there- 
fore involuntary. 

Similar remarks apply to other physical organs. 
They all present, or deliver their several impres- 
sions, often violently, but, when acting normally, 
with a degree of conservative vigor just sufficient 
to give thought a fit object for the display of its 
rational, volitional, and personal powers. 

You may have observed that I am distinctly ad- 
mitting that an exterior impression is delivered to 
me with a vigor adequate to attract my attention, 
affording me an opportunity thus to react on it, as 
best I may, with the powers of my voluntary and 
constructive knowledges. And, confessedly, this 
does give me a physical object for my study, and 
which my thought could never give. Moreover, if 
an exterior potency is ever to be at all known, it 
must in some way be presented as an object for 
thought, lest otherwise, if I had to present it, I 
must needs be exterior to myself to make the exte- 
rior presentation. 

I am not, however, to be driven to the conclusion 
(conventional usage to the contrary) that the sensor 
organ is sensitive. Its sole office is to deliver sen- 
sations. 

The cognitive activity alone is sensitive. The 



82 THE TOWER OF THOUGHT 

outward organ mediates a physical impression after 
its own way, and thereupon the former, ever open 
to the call of external visitations, consciously and 
sensitively apprehends it. The exterior visitation 
neither imports sensitiveness, nor a susceptibility 
to sensation, but the mind gets it from within, ere it 
can be properly equipped for going out to affirm the 
sensorial visitation. 

But this apart, we have now some sensorial ob- 
jects before the bar of thought, and having these, 
we are prepared to enter upon all our rational pos- 
sibilities, affirming ideas or knowledges by affirming 
the attributes which identify the objects presented. 
For, if we have objects for thought, we may dis- 
cursively re-integrate their rational constituents 
and affiliations. 

Ill 

Here I am led to inquire : How can we know sen- 
sations ? Allow me to offer a brief explanation. 
As phenomena, they would forever remain an un- 
known quantity, if we could not see some tracings 
of meaning; some touches of thought and method; 
something significant in their behavior stamped in 
their constitution. And it is a matter for mind to 
note these tracings and make report of their value. 
If it can decipher the underlying meanings, and so 
got out the significance of the tracings, it will have 
something for its pains, an idea, opinion, or informa- 
tion which it can affirm and act on. 

For the acquisition of any knowledge is just so 
much power achieved for shaping an order of con- 



SUPPLEMENTARY STATEMENTS 83 

secutions well known to constructive thought. And 
the principle on, or by, which anything was con- 
structed, is open to exploration, and will reveal in 
what it is, and does, some intimations of the mind 
that constructed it ; and so, if we would interpret 
his work, we must proceed from it to the thought 
of him who planned it, just as we do when we pro- 
ceed from human works to human thoughts, for an 
explanation more or less satisfactory. 

But can this explain how we know sensations ? 
Yes ! The fetch of ideas from any of our sensorial 
impressions, as from the more stupendous works of 
creative thought ; what is it at bottom, but to dis- 
cover God's constructive and creative ideas hid 
away in sensations, phenomena, portents, or any- 
thing else that can lay claim to distinctive attri- 
butes ? 

And if, peradventure, we should ever come to 
know them they would have to be laboriously sought 
out and dug up, after the manner of one excavating 
antique finds. 

And what if, in this regard, mind should be the 
expert archaeologist who studies the finds, deciphers 
the inscriptions, and certifies and publishes their 
import! For what we all find is "hid treasure" 
awaiting discovery and interpretation, and many a 
link in the concatenation may never be found. 

But then, our epigraph ist is curious, enthusiastic, 
enterprising, and much emotioned in view of re- 
sults, and never halts until he has laid bare the 
last secret meet for his day and generation. 

For these, and similar reasons, therefore, we feel 



84 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

justified in concluding that our thought, as seen in 
the perception of sensations, or other objects, is but 
the perception of some thought, or the evidence for 
it, stowed away in phenomena, sensorial, or other. 
It is human thought discovering the thought of 
some other thinker. 

An abundant practical experience engenders a 
safe, common-sense capacity for recognizing and 
making use of evidences of mind and meaning seen 
in things exterior. 

And we soon find that the more successfully we 
do this, the truer we are to the mother nature of 
our own constructive thought and to that of uni- 
versal creation as well. 



CHAPTER X 
Conceptive Presentations 



The discovery of bare (concrete) ideas, or their 
presentation, may be fraught with vivid satisfac- 
tions, and still the soul may not be the efficient, 
provident, personal energy it becomes when it can 
take full charge of conduct. At this latter period, 
it is moved by the power of more comprehensive, 
and, therefore, more productive, informations. It 
is hence incumbent on us to remark upon some par- 
ticulars of its progressive work, if we would know 
how it wins its way to freedom. 

We have just seen it acquiring a large store of 
perceptive informations. It is, therefore, now in 
a position to bethink itself of further conquests. 
And our purpose is to keep along with it as it 
extends its inquiries. And, though we have been 
consciously affirming its feats, from infancy onward, 
its way to advanced achievement well-nigh forbids 
any satisfactory statement. 

II 

Mind alone is sensitive, the sensor organ, not. 
The latter, however, delivers itself dynamically, 
and lodges an impression within reach of the power 
85 



86 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

which, in turn, first feels, and then perceives, the 
impression. 

Now, at the very moment of perception, some 
dim pencillings of discursive thought must begin 
to emerge, heralding the advent of wider vistas 
beyond mere perception, but, as yet, too shadowy 
for the bold outlines of conception. Let us call 
this vague blushful premonition of conception, the 
notion, because, though a real knowledge, it has 
not been distinctly clarified and affirmed by the 
searching scrutiny of analysis and judgment. For 
we must take it that our larger, rational compe- 
tencies have been bestowing, at least, a curious 
interest in those earliest discoveries of perception, 
and so have turned up some discursive intimations, 
darkly, yet joyfully, at their worth, and are now at 
the door of conception, peering beyond. 

I would not be misunderstood. Every achievement 
of mind is, in fact, more or less discursive. Even 
perception, being, as before explained, a presentation 
by the judgment, is, for that reason, a first, or pri- 
mary, inference, or discursion. This remark covers 
every information mediated by the test methods of 
judgment and inference, on inspection of evidence. 

It will therefore be my aim to follow up the 
psychological development of knowledges so delib- 
erately entered upon in preceding pages, dwelling 
on that particular stage reached by the mind when 
it is seeking those of wider significance than more 
perceptions, but restricting our inquiry more to a 
view of them as discoveries, than as patencies. 
(The latter will be dealt with later on.) 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 87 

For indeed, the soul is so indivisibly a unit that, 
when it is discursive, it is potent, and when potent, 
discursive. It is always alive to the power of its 
thoughts ; both conception and its power superven- 
ing on occasion of a view of its growing wants and 
interests, a class of personal requirements so emi- 
nently human, that they never manifest themselves 
save as they respond to the call of the strictly 
human thoughts that inspire them. 

Ill 

But to proceed with my analysis of the bolder 
flights of conception ! The problem before us is to 
determine how thought ever comes to know enough 
of itself, and the things about it, to enable it to 
conceive, and realize, its higher wants. I instance 
some familiar examples. Here is an old illustra- 
tion, that of a rose. An exact analysis forbids our 
saying, we perceive it. When first confronted, we 
perceive only the excitations made in the sensorium, 
namely, those of sight, taste, smell, etc., and as we 
said, these begin to take discursive transformation, 
tremulously and vaguely, in the notion. 

But thought hies onward. In the act of percep- 
tion, it feels the awakening stimulus of concrete 
ideas, and, in the same instant, takes the road to con- 
ception in the light of the faint glimmerings of the 
notion. And now, if we would know more of it, 
we must needs keep abreast with its bolder visions 
beyond. 

The rose emits an effluvium which travels along 
the olfactory nerves to the inner sensorium, there 



88 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

to meet the power that perceives it as an object to 
be known, and object for study. Here the resources 
of comparison, judgment, and inference are brought 
into requisition, and begin an eager, and tireless, 
inquiry. 

See the result! The sensation is touched with 
some differentiating features (it could not be any- 
thing without these). They are identified as con- 
stituent elements, or, else, qualifying adjuncts, 
of the rose, and if so, they are the attributes, or 
accompaniments, which mark it as an individual 
thing distinct from other things. Here we have 
uncovered many informations, correlated, distin- 
guished, contrasted, called forth at the bidding of 
thought. 

Here, too, in the grouping of such contrasting 
and divergent phenomena, we have some of our 
first conceptions : of the related and dependent ; 
of a whole and its parts ; of an exterior force and 
what it does, and of that peculiar relation of mind 
as a discoverer of facts to the object which it inter- 
views. 

Such are some of the conceptions of thought; 
brave achievements with suggestive, constructive, 
far-reaching affiliations. Whence come they ? Why 
here, why studied, and what their import ? Can 
we connect them with human wants ? Can they 
be employed in life and conduct, as our exertive, 
and personal, motors? The answer to these ques- 
tions may be gathered from what follows. 

For the present, we are but spectators, beholding 
thought acquiring the knowledge on which it may 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 89 

found character and conduct ; its efficiency, as a 
free cause, being measured by the scope and bear- 
ing of its informations. For in affirming certain 
attributes as part and parcel of the things of, or 
about, us, we are employing our own distinctively 
rational method for ascertaining what they are and 
what they do; affirming thus a brotherhood of 
members and traits which may be resolved into 
their identifying marks, and put to such a discur- 
sive use as will minister to our higher wants. For 
thought is ever making discoveries in the interest 
of its loftier appreciations. 

The rose impacted the sensorium with a physical 
impression, and thought discovered its significance. 
It fetched forth ideas of cause and effect, self and 
not self, external power with its train of variously 
significant impressions. It was given a concrete 
perturbation in a sensor organ or organs. It decom- 
posed this into the parts of the concrete thing that 
contained them. It has contrasted an exterior po- 
tency with its own inner potencies. It has conferred 
with the rose, and ascertained that it is fragrant, 
beautiful to the eye, ministering to our aesthetic 
satisfactions. And so, again, it has compared notes 
with its colors, and configuration, and garnered up 
ideas of touch and sight combined. And it will bring- 
in the soft, the hard, the smooth, the rough, etc., and 
connecting all these knowledges together by a con- 
ception of their aesthetic, utilitarian, or other pecul- 
iarities, pass onward to considerations which will 
arouse our higher emotional and voluntary suscep- 
tibilities. 



90 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

It would be more than tedious to make mention 
of every idea, sought out from a study of the rose, 
and its relation to ourselves, and other entities. 
But there are some associated with the universe of 
things around us, which claim a passing notice in 
this connection. It is but one of numberless 
things, all of which are naturally so interdepen- 
dent that, whilst proclaiming this mutual depen- 
dence, they proclaim, as well, the creative thought 
of Him who conceived and constructed their being, 
and apportioned, and correlated their diverse func- 
tions. 

And here, it is needless to say that in all this 
effort to command the meaning of the things we 
are interviewing, we are evoking conceptions of 
laws of being and action resting on the thought 
of the first Lawgiver. 

rv 

But again, we have seen perceptions diverge and 
differ, parting off into distinct classes, answering to 
the external organs which mediate diverse impres- 
sions. And we may have noticed that even those 
which belong to the same class have many striking 
points of dissimilarity. Now, all these divaricat- 
ing traits enounce the salient marks which attract 
attention. 

What, then, is 1 lie attitude of a young mind in 
Midi a presence? It is in a land of wonders, ex- 
pectant and deeply emotioned. It will, therefore, 
fee] that it lias a marvel of strange things to un- 
ravel, [twill not long remain in suspense. It will 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 91 

at once begin their investigation, by sorting out the 
component elements of the different impressions, — 
some of which are statical, and some dynamical, — 
arriving finally at some settled convictions on which 
it may act. 

Yet, this is bnt one of the numberless similar 
problems to which it gives due attention all through 
life, and in order to a further conception of what 
they are, and what to do with them. 

Another point may here be dwelt upon. 

Not infrequently, exterior forces present them- 
selves intrusively, — sometimes violently. Now, 
it will behoove thought to see, not simply what 
they are in barest presentation, but, as I have said, 
to come to some conclusions in respect of their be- 
havior and meaning, and give them place as so much 
mental power that may be put to use for our per- 
sonal betterment. 

It is readily seen that we are here alighting on 
some informations bearing on the conservation of 
life, health, morals, business, etc. And it is for 
this reason that the very lineaments of our various 
sensations have to be understood and placed in their 
logical connections. The coordination of sensations 
with their causes, the sedulous study of every po- 
tency, — our own and other's, — with a view to the 
growth of our own conscious powers, all these have 
to be caught up, and matured, and fixed in the soul. 



The sheet of paper on which I am writing may 
serve to exemplify the general subject of concep- 



92 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

tion. If one sees but the awkward, shambling 
chirography, he gets but scant information. But 
let us give it, and its tortuous tracings in ink, a 
little careful thought. Is that all we see? All 
indeed, if we have only perceptive informations. 
But our thought is a restless energy, given to more 
rational ventures. It has a wide range of inquisi- 
tive powers by which it acquires discursive in- 
formations. It is by no means a weak-minded 
neophyte taking the veriest outside view of the 
fixtures and features of things about him. 

It discovers that these letters form syllables, 
words, sentences, paragraphs, etc. ; that their allo- 
cation on the paper gives them a grammatical 
structure, and that, together, they are signs of the 
thought of the writer, which any reader may recast. 

Bemember, that all we started with was paper, 
ink, and cursive characters. But what have we 
now beyond these? Many things: thought, pen- 
manship, rhetoric, grammar, logic, opinion, judg- 
ment, and many other debilitating effusions. But 
we follow the conceptive affiliations of the argu- 
ment so faithfully that we have rethought the 
thoughts of the thinker. 

We have sifted the scrawl and released its ra- 
tional constituents. The writer gives us a sample 
of his work, and we put our mind to work upon it, 
and affirm and follow his thoughts. And this, his 
work, was withal a new creation, not made over to 
him by a neighbor, but a work of his own, formu- 
lated ;u id finished by force of the inborn power of 
!iis conceptions. 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 93 

And you, his readers, what in turn are you doing ? 
Your eyes see only the paper, ink, and cursives. 
But you give them discursive appreciation. You 
separate them off by their literary, logical, and 
other rational consanguinities. And in this you 
are remarking the writer's thought, on evidence for 
it. You found it wrapped up in the unconscious 
cerements of ink and paper, and now, behold, it is 
alive and speaks ! 

And in this regard, you too have been doing 
what I call a creative work, brought home to your 
hand by the power of discursion. For though you 
may not create anything, de novo, yet your power 
of thought has brought to you a new thing, that in 
all cases exists for you, only through your power to 
conceive it. 

VI 

I come now to a study of, say, an apple. We 
touch, taste, see, smell, and feel it, mediating thus 
diverse impressions, and framing variant ideas of 
its peculiar attributes. Here is progress, but so 
far, only bare perceptions, or else, inarticulate con- 
ceptions, in aid of these. But now, if we undertake 
to compare and contrast these impressions, we are 
invoking the giftlier resources of mind. We are 
bringing up the reserves and body-guards of the 
soul. 

We remark that the apple is connected with the 
parent stem ; the bud with the bloom ; bud and 
bloom with the fruit ; the fruit with its power to 
please the taste, or to sate hunger ; the bud, bloom, 



91 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

branches, etc., with the main trunk, etc. The sap, 
the seasons, the fertile soil, the abounding world 
around us, all are thoughtfully pondered, and the 
purport of their interrelations sought out and af- 
firmed. For we are in search of the finger prints 
of constructive thought stamped on nature, and we 
have only to recognize them, in order to the assump- 
tion of constructive powers of our own. 

And, therefore, do we make requisition of all our 
rational resources, and so reach conclusions, con- 
victions, dianoetical informations, etc., and act as 
these inform us. And I repeat, we reach the afore- 
said power of knowledge by a rational elaboration 
of the things we study, that is to say, by a concep- 
tion of their statical and dynamical affiliations with 
our personal good (or bad). 

VII 

We now work our way to the horse, another cap- 
ital find. But how did we ever come to discover 
our way out to him? He is not without some 
points of attraction within easy call of mind. Our 
optic nerves receive his visual outlines, and deliver 
them to the inner sensorium, where they are per- 
ceived. But can thought release their meaning? 
lis mission is to pry into the why and the where- 
fore of things, in order to personal power. It will 
therefore try to know the horse, and its capabili- 
ties. It sees that its configuration cuts it away 
from other objects in the landscape. It follows 
the peculiar profile from which we frame the men- 
tal map of an animal, in contradistinction to what 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 95 

is not one, and so on, discriminating, finally, one 
horse from another, and from other things. Here 
many conceptions are smnmoned forth, in under- 
stood connections. 

But thought halts not. It sets foot forward on 
new and ever newer ground, advancing from con- 
quest to conquest. It affirms the color of the 
horse, its grade, and shading; and compares these 
with other colors of the brood and of the land- 
scape. Then, there is its physique, bristling with 
the signs of life in all its members. These are like- 
wise distinctly pondered and formulated. But it 
is put to repeated acts of judgment, in making out 
the parts which identify the horse, and, at the same 
time, distinguish it from other horses, or things. 
And here it is, at the same moment, acquiring many 
other ideas, such as those of proof and inference 
from the evidences, verification of facts, and con- 
viction, etc. Here, too, it comes to know the posi- 
tion, posture, ubi, and habits of the animal in 
rest or motion, each and all of which have to be 
distinctly affirmed before they can be rated as 
conceptions. 

Should we inquire now : Whence all these fruit- 
ful discoveries ? The answer is : They are the 
faithful products of discursive reason. The two 
diverse factors concerned are mind, and the enti- 
ties that confront it. Each is a power unto itself, 
but neither can derogate from what is competent 
to the other. What is of the horse, and its sur- 
roundings, conveys impressions to the inner senso- 
rium, just as what is of the mind affirms all it can 



96 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

see and interpret of the outness, locality, life, ways, 
utilities, marks, etc., of the horse. 

The horse has life and power, power of muscle 
and thought, and what he does, and is, are indicia 
of his capabilities. He is hence a find which we 
can train to serve us in many industrial, and even 
aesthetic ways, and to an almost unlimited extent. 
He is docile, tractable, strong, durable, serviceable, 
and when we come to know all these things, we 
can make use of him as a domestic animal. 

VIII 

The great problem of how we come to conceive 
the idea of cause comes next in order. 

It is plain that we cannot act our part in life's 
stirring drama without knowing that we have 
power to act it. It is equally plain that we cannot 
perform it without a knowledge of the power of 
neighboring entities. Action expresses cause, or 
productive energy, and implies a subject acting, 
and an object acted upon. 

Now, the peculiarity of thought is that, when 
acted upon by an exterior cause, it cannot receive the 
action of its correlate with absolute passivity. * For, 
when once in cognitive commerce with such an object, 
it goes out to meet it with a cognitive vehemence 
peculiar to itself, and adapted to the emergency. 
It acts on what it knows, and according to what it 
knows, of the power and mission of its visitor. 

But the very first act it bestows on its visitor is 
an act of attention which is an act of the will, and, 
therefore, a personal cause 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 97 

But I am presently to inquire : How get we the 
idea of an external cause ? 

I have just pointed out the fact, that, when an 
external object produces an impression on some one 
of our inner sense centres, thought actively, and 
instantly, perceives that impression as a power ex- 
ternal to the power that affirms it ; for an external 
object has been presented for its study. And when 
it resolves this impression into a subject and its 
attributes, abstracting, for closer inspection, the 
several potencies and adjuncts that constitute it, 
it could not long stand firm against the partition of 
such constantly recurring phenomena as antece- 
dence and subsequence into power and result, which 
is the idea of cause and effect. 

For, indeed, to speak of a thing as lacking the 
attribute of power or cause, is to speak of what 
we are unable to conceive ; and this, because noth- 
ing in the universe can come into conception, save 
through some manifestation of its power. Some ex- 
terior impressions are indeed very mild, some vio- 
lent, but even the mildest must present some trace 
of power, adequate to make the impression in the 
sensorium, on perceiving which, thought perceives 
an external potency. 

The fact is patent, therefore, that we have our 
idea of an external cause from a series of external 
impressions, made in the sensorium, and whether 
mild or violent. 

If they are sufficiently forceful to arrest atten- 
tion to their frequent occurrence, the mind will 
observe that fact, and, for a while, it may be, ob- 



98 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

serve nothing more. But it may afterward remark 
upon the constant, and invariable sequence be- 
tween a given antecedent and subsequent. This 
will foster a desire to make a more thorough 
examination. And, so, the mind pauses to account 
for a priority and posteriority, perpetually recur- 
ring, between phenomena, and makes the discovery 
that there is something more than mere priority 
in the antecedent ; that it cannot act at all, unless 
potent, and that if potent, its power will be mani- 
fested, and even measured, by what it does, i.e., by 
its result. 

Now, I have just explained that we have already 
had the idea of a conscious cause through attention, 
and acts of judgment and reason. For every act 
of thought is an act of personal power, going for- 
ward as cause, into its peculiar results. It is per- 
sonal efficiency, or voluntary power. And allow 
me to say that, when we get this idea of personal 
j)ower, or cause, we are disporting ourselves within 
the domain of reason and judgment on evidence, 
and, if we should employ the same idea and the 
same rational processes to help us to infer an 
external cause or power sufficient to determine 
both priority and result, it will be but another 
exercise of reason and judgment, and entirely at 
our discretion. 

Now, inasmuch as a conscious act of reason 
affirms that this thing named cause, or power, 
and which is affirmed in affirming any and every- 
thing, is an exterior something, and not of our- 
selves, and, yet, we are certain of having traced 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 99 

the attribute of efficiency to the antecedent which 
produced the consequent, it follows that we have 
conceived a cause, or power, in the antecedent 
sufficient to produce the result. In other words, 
we have found power in the antecedent which sets 
forth a new something called a result or conse- 
quence, which in turn sets forth, and makes good, 
its claim to the antecedent as the parent energy 
that went forth to establish it. But, in all this, 
we are governed by the test methods of observa- 
tion, comparison, judgment, and inference. Indeed, 
we have to make conquest of all this cognoscible 
universe, precisely as we have done with the rose, 
the horse, etc. For what is presented to our con- 
fronting intelligence ; what is furnished by any 
sensorial contributor, — all this is, as I have said, 
buried treasure whose significance has first to be 
winnowed out, and then carefully worked up into 
inferences, convictions, and reconstructive informa- 
tions, and then finally fixed in character and vented 
in conduct, and in the moral rectifications and 
repressions of conscience. 

IX 

Another step forward in the line of our re- 
searches brings up the principle of universal cau- 
sation expressed in the formula: Every change 
which begins to exist, or appear, has a cause. 
And the question presents itself: How does the 
mind come to know this truth ? Well, just as it 
affirms everything else, on evidence deemed valid. 

We are advancing simply from particular causes 



100 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

to a supreme cause dominating all particular causes. 
But this is a search for the power that spake the 
worlds into being and placed them under orders to 
an irrepealable law of cause and effect. 

We had some reasons for determining the law 
for individual instances of cause and effect, and 
we discovered a power in the antecedent which 
accounted for the changes observed, and now, we 
would contemplate one that dominates all changes, 
and we say with Shakespeare — 

" I'll see these things ! 
They are rare, and wondrous curious." 

Yes, let us see them. But how shall this be done ? 

We look within and without and see a vast assem- 
blage of finite powers, and we remark the fact of 
our inability to frame a system of laws for changes 
embracing the universe. And yet we see that the 
whole world is under bonds to some potency which 
will account for all its transformations, and though 
finite, we are held to some convictions, honestly 
acquired. We know that the finite is incompetent 
to universal power, and we search for something 
that is. We are inquisitive, and pursue the inquiry. 

We see that the work is superhuman and super- 
finite, and we conceive an adequate power from 
what such work teaches us. We are in quest of 
a law of order for a universe of changes, the con- 
ception of a vast multitude of things grouped to- 
gether and co-acting under a law of cause and 
effect such as we affirm for the particular changes 
we have observed. 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 101 

We have long since learned that the idea of ex- 
ternality is founded on the potency of the impres- 
sion, or sensation, made in the inner sensorium. 
And we argue that a universal cause calls for an 
all-embracing energy, competent to dominate a 
universe of changes. And in the strictest analy- 
sis, the principle of universal causality is, there- 
fore, but the force of some omniscient thought 
expressed in all His works, and this supreme, 
causative efficiency, thus gone over into all manner 
of changes, is the antecedent cause which con- 
ceived, and constructed, and continually enforces, 
a universal law of causation for all things finite. 

It is to be understood that we do not pretend to 
follow every thought and every turn of thought 
that goes into any work, finite or infinite. And yet, 
it is simply impossible to behold the transforma- 
tions going on in phenomena, and not affirm one 
thing : poiver of some kind, in any, or all, antece- 
dents, competent to produce the result, or results. 

We are utterly unable to ignore such an insuper- 
able presence. We can conceive of no change but 
what is under bonds to a power adequate to pro- 
duce it. 

X 

But now, that the regular coordination of enti- 
ties has had incidental mention, I may inquire, 
further, in respect of how we conceive a rational 
basis for the interplay of their activities. 

If, in the display of their activities, they pursue 
an accepted order of transformations, there must 



102 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

be some reasons why they evince such an order. 
As neighboring entities coming within reach of 
the mind's power to apprehend them, they must 
have some way of making themselves knowable to 
the power that undertakes to know them; some 
way of mutely intimating their presence and 
attributes to our thinking possibilities. 

Inquiring, then, why mind can discourse with 
matter, we have but one possible answer : Matter 
has a tell-tale sign-language of her own, implanted 
in her constitution and manifested in her attributes. 
She is, indeed, not given to talk, but she can pre- 
sent phenomena so charged with meaning and 
rational coordination that our thought can lay 
hold on these and make use of their rational 
intimations. For this earlier, and non-verbal, 
speech of matter has its parallel in man's acts, 
or deeds, and is known as we know them. 

But, being what it is through the thought of an 
omniscient thinker, our finite thought can remark 
the evidences of his shaping intelligence behind 
and beyond the phenomenal manifestations. 

The truth is that all knowledge, and all science, 
founds on a concerted arrangement for the com- 
merce of mind, as a discoverer of truth, and matter, 
as the work of some other mind. And, therefore, 
is it that no phenomena can ever be certified and 
explained except on condition of our finding some 
other mind, speaking to us through the rational 
economy of order displayed in the things inter- 
viewed. 

Talk as we may, there is some pre-adaption in 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 103 

the things about us by which they speak to us and 
vindicate a rational explanation. And it is ever in 
this way that our thought discovers in matter (or 
in mind in all its moods) some thought or power of 
thought of some other thinker, and does really com- 
mune with Him as with an elder brother; for it 
cannot commune with anything, if its speech is 
estranged from the rational principles on which 
itself founds. 

And therefore comes it to pass that, albeit every- 
thing not ourselves is an outsider, it can be en- 
treated as a familiar whom we may interrogate and 
deliver of his ideas, after the manner of the redoubt- 
able Socrates. For what is orderly, is so, because 
of reasons for it, and its speech is rational, because 
all work tells some tale of its constructor to any 
mind that can afford to frame a thought, or devise 
a work of its own. 

It is for reasons like these we claim that, when 
by an act of conception, we affirm certain attributes 
as part and parcel of a given object, we are in fact 
affirming that they are held together by the unre- 
laxing grip of law and order. 

Allow an illustration to the point. We are look- 
ing at a photograph. What do we see ? Nothing 
but the superficies of paper and carpentry work, 
every whit matter. At the same moment, however, 
our intelligence will be searching for the evidences 
of design, meaning, or motive for its construction. 

Now, exactly the same method is pursued when 
we wish to interpret nature. At first, as before 
explained, she is nothing to us but a physical exci- 



104 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

tation in the sensorium; a something exterior to 
our perceptive intelligence. But being under charge 
of a pervading law of order, she speaks for, and 
vicariously proclaims, an omniscient Lawmaker, as 
the true cause of everything subject to that law. 
And now, if we avail ourselves of these explana- 
tions, we may approach the problem of universal 
causation under guide of evidences which compel 
us to infer the power of creative thought, in order 
to account for a law of cause and effect impressed 
upon everything we know of His work. 

Yes, there must be power in the antecedent suffi- 
cient to produce the result; else otherwise, there 
coidd be no change, no result, no universe even. 

XI 

And right here we are face to face with an objec- 
tion that impeaches the logic of our contention. 

The point is made that, when we infer universal 
causation from particular instances of it, there is 
more in the conclusion than in the premises. It 
will take but a moment, I am persuaded, to expose 
the fallacy of this famous argument. The logic of 
particular facts is sufficient for any conclusion we 
make, and for our part, we would not have it 
disturbed. We may at least see that there is no 
more invalidity in the inference to a universal cause 
pervading all things and all changes, than in infer- 
ring many things on which everybody acts, but the 
truth of which is beyond any possibility of verifica- 
tion by an actual observation of the fact inferred. 

For instance, wc infer that the sun will rise to- 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 105 

morrow, though we may never step out of the pres- 
ent into the future to get the fact from actual 
observation before sunrise to-morrow. And you 
can no more verify this than the fact of universal 
causation. It is an inference from the fact that 
the sun has risen every morning up to the present 
time. But it would be well for the objector to re- 
mark that this inference is validated only by con- 
ceiving the law for cause and effect to be founded 
on a power sufficient for any time, if not repealed ; 
the implication being that, if God were to withdraw 
the law for this order of consecutions, our inference 
would then be that the sun would not rise to-morrow. 
Here we see that the mind is so conservative in 
its deductions, that it will not have the inference to 
be irresistible, except on condition of the law for 
the return of day and night continuing as in the 
ages past. The limits of the premises and con- 
clusion are throughout co-terminous. The conclu- 
sion is legitimate. A part of what is known to be 
an order of consecutions implies the whole, as long 
as that order is unrepealed. Our logic is consistent. 
Again, from seeing the front of the moon, we infer 
it has a back, though no man can ever see it. Here 
our inference is from a direct inspection to what 
can never be verified by observation. But who 
doubts, or can doubt, the legitimacy of our infer- 
ence ? The inference is valid. But why ? The 
fact is that, when knowledge is of a part, or parts, 
we reason to the complementary part, or parts, as 
well in order to be rational, and even logical, as in 
order to the whole, and its parts ; for we cannot 



106 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

conceive the one without the other. Now, the ar- 
gument is identical, when, from observing that the 
sequence of cause and effect obtains among all 
things knowable, we infer that the law is uni- 
versal. And yet this is but to infer from a part 
of God's works to the whole, though we can never 
see the whole. 

Here too, premise and conclusion are consist- 
ent. The part implies the ivhole. 

But we may vary our argument, so as to state it 
in the form of a syllogism. 

(1.) If there is an order of things seen to evince 
the law of cause and effect, there is a rational 
cause to account for this order. Now this argu- 
ment is nowise different from that which finds a 
back to the moon. It proceeds from a part known 
by observation — that is to say, particular in- 
stances of cause and effect — to a part that can 
never be known by any amount of human obser- 
vation. For, if you are compelled to infer cause or 
power to account for particular results, you are 
compelled, as well, to infer cause or power suffi- 
cient to account for universal results. The logic 
is irresistible. 

(2.) We may state the major premise for uni- 
versal causation somewhat thus : If the Creator 
should put matter and mind, so far as tee know 
them, under control of a law of cause and effect, 
the inference is irresistible that they will be simi- 
larly controlled so far as this creation extends; 
supposing all the time that what He has created 
discloses the consecutions of cause and effect, — 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 107 

productive power and the result produced, — pat- 
terned after the manner of those of any mind, 
capable of projecting the power of thought into 
what it can do. For all thought is bound by a 
law of order — discursive, logical, or other — with- 
out which it could not affirm anything. 

And here again, we are but bringing in the back 
of the moon along with the front, — a logical infer- 
ence from some particular fact, or facts, observed, 
to others incapable of observation. For the argu- 
ment proceeds upon the fact that a rational power 
cannot contradict reason, or in other words, the 
logical sweep of the evidence ; and that our infer- 
ence is valid, when we advance from a part to the 
whole of an order of transformation co-extensive 
with all we can affirm of God's works and intelli- 
gence, — even though we may never know, by 
direct observation, any more about this order of 
things than we know about the centre of the earth, 
or the centre of the solar system, or the back of 
the moon ; all which is affirmed on evidence from 
particular facts. 

This argument supposes also that we are com- 
puting with the effective work done in conformity 
with a law of causation which evidences the force 
of some constructive and creative thought, as seen 
in all we have observed in the special consecutions 
of cause and effect, — even power in the antecedent 
specially qualified to produce the unique result. 

Tons of coal burning in the open air at the city 
of Baku will never send a car to Tashkend. But 
constructive thought will. But wherefore! Be- 



108 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

cause it is taught of the lore of omniscience, caught 
up from particular instances of cause and effect; 
because we have remarked and affirmed the con- 
secutions of cause and effect in what we know of 
ourselves and the external world; because we can 
argue from any work we see to the measure and 
quality of a mind, or man, we cannot, or do not see, 
— and we act as our logic impels us. We infer and 
do, and do as we infer. 

XII 

I conclude this branch of our subject with some 
general observations. 

Mind can affirm evidences of mind. But this 
mind must do more than simply observe phe- 
nomena. It must pass beyond the phenomenal 
manifestations of truth, if it would be a construc- 
tive power. It must advance from the evidences 
in hand, to truths beyond the reach of observa- 
tion, but supported by the evidence. The light 
and smoke that nicker in a lime-kiln are certainly 
a conspicuous small fact, readily seen. The unseen 
core of fire within, without which there had been 
no smoke and no flicker, is the real efficient of the 
work done ; so, of all work, we must affirm power 
of some kind in the antecedent specially qualified 
to produce a given result. 

The time for all this loud talk about science, 
small facts, agnosticism, etc., giving us all truth, 
has passed. I say candidly that these facts are 
important, as evidences for facts placed beyond the 
reach of any number of such scientific, but agnostic, 



CONCEPTIVE PKESENTATIONS 109 

discoveries. The purely phenomenal is not synony- 
mous with either entire being or thought. Nature 
has a logic of her own planted in her statics and 
dynamics — a law for the interaction of all entities 
— which inhibits our sundering the evidential from 
the facts which they evidence, the part from the 
whole, the outer from the inner, the phenomenal 
from the real, the portent from the portent-maker. 
The phenomenal, the outer, etc., must be chased to 
its source in some more pregnant fact. 

And so we are brought again to our old conclu- 
sion that, when thought is affirming the signifi- 
cance of things lingering^in all manner of work 
and being it is, in one way or other, recasting the 
thought of Him who informed all His works with 
countless traces of constructive thought. 

Here I would be allowed to make incidental men- 
tion of some conceptions resorted to in connection 
with our personal well-being. 

For we have to discover, not alone, how to make 
use of our own faculties and of things not ourselves, 
but how to meet wants all of which depend on cal- 
culation, judgment, and foresight ; wants which can 
have no being, until mediated and authorized by 
some rational conception of our higher needs. And 
it is so that, whenever any advanced conception is 
reached, the mind becomes a mightier power, and, 
by an exercise of its then mightier powers, wins for 
itself an order of constructive informations, more 
and more potent, to the end. 

And, therefore, thought is not a mere inclosed 
subjectivity, content with the literary aspects of its 



110 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

acquisitions, but a self-conserving energy, discover- 
ing informations whose salient function is a con- 
structive support for conduct. 

Moreover, thought has some conceptive and con- 
structive intimations, vaguely outlined from the 
very beginning of its acquaintance with external 
nature, as I have heretofore explained in other con- 
nections. For whatever an external impression may 
mean, that meaning has to be excogitated of mind, 
and all the connotations underlying the sensorial 
impression have to be remarked, and wrought out, 
solely by a careful sifting of the evidences for 
them; that is to say, we search for them, and if 
perad venture we affirm them, they are avouched by 
more rational conception of the facts which evi- 
dence them. 

And, therefore, have I explained that they are 
not seen by an external organ for perception, but 
by a power of discursive vision which unfolds and 
affirms attributes in objects, wherein we descry 
some evidence of the mind of Him who constructed 
them ; this being His way of bringing a product of 
His thought into communion with ours. For there 
is, in whatever confronts our intelligence, a con- 
structive make-up of significant attributes that 
tells some tale of its maker, and so evidences some 
aspect of His thought. 

Ami it makes no difference, whether we know an 
object by perception or conception, if only we 
have a valid conviction resting on evidence ; and to 
the knowing intelligence the only proof of a fact is 
the evidence of thought seen in the constructive 



CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 111 

behavior of things, their special attributes and 
correlations. 

Certainly, nothing could be more absurd than to 
say we could think, much less converse with, an 
object void of any rational construction. It must 
have attributes and potencies so correlated as to 
provoke rational scrutiny. 

It seems evident, therefore, that the field of 
exploration, in which we gather all our ideas, must 
be built up with significant traits which will 
avouch some rational story of Him who built it up. 
It is also evident that, if we did not have this 
rational basis for discovery and interpretation, we 
could never acquire those constructive and pro- 
spective informations which enable us to block out 
a line of conduct for a future day. Tor depending 
from this power to interpret such characteristic 
phenomena is the power to witness for aims and 
purposes which pass over into all we do, and so in 
turn manifest our own thoughts. 

But I now turn to another chapter, where my 
contention may be further explicated. 



CHAPTER XI 

Moral Coxceptions 

The work of a responsible being is totally differ- 
ent from that found in the realm of matter. It is 
likewise diversely separated from the subordinate 
processes which develop the intelligence. It is to 
be hoped that a correct account of that work can 
now be given. 

I 

I am presently to contemplate mind in the atti- 
tude of conceiving moral informations. Having 
these, we act in view of ends or purposes, and can 
take pains to secure them. But if we lack these 
informations, we part company with the last vestige 
of our nobler humanities. 

Man is a personal unit that combats all comers, 
in order to maintain moral views and aims; that 
cultivates, and allows for the action of, exterior 
potencies, whilst commanding their services; that 
values equally the moral qualities of thought and 
conduct, devising thus what he shall do, in view of 
the moral sanctions evoked, and a personal assump- 
tion of his obligations. 

Ami here we have achievements quite beyond 
the range of involuntary transformations, not to 
mention Buch pupillary training as the mind resorts 

112 



MORAL CONCEPTIONS 113 

to in preparation for moral work. For we are 
taking man as now prepared to enter the province 
of morals, where the power to choose enables him 
literally to carry out his inclinations, or else con- 
trol them by a different conception of what he 
ought to do. He has choice in selecting his way 
of life, and cannot divest himself of it, even if he 
would. And choice makes him free. Still he 
must choose under stress of his moral obligations. 
Observe, he is not under any constraint to emotions, 
and desires, operating as forces independent of the 
moral conceptions that inspire them. The whole 
thing is determined by a pressure coming from his 
moral appreciations ; by his ideas of right and 
wrong. Nor does he ever do wrong through an 
original impetus which supplants an intelligent 
foresight of consequences for which he holds him- 
self responsible. The pressure is due to the force 
of his moral conceptions alone ; conceptions whose 
stringency he has himself mediated and sanctioned. 

And here, it may be needful to remark that the 
general explanation for all the acts of man lies in 
his power of mind. 

I give place to a pertinent illustration of this. 
Sun and rain operate on a lump of clay, and it is 
modified, say, to the extreme limit of necessitating 
causes. These present a number of reactions pre- 
scribed by God's unchanging laws, giving us the 
power and play of involuntary forces. But the 
behavior of a voluntary or moral potency displays 
a conscious contrast with that of the former. " The 
potter hath power over the clay, of the same lump 



114 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

to make a vessel unto honor, and another unto dis- 
honor"; commanding thus a result denied to a 
material agency. 



But the point I am now making does not rest 
solely on man's power of successful reasoning. It 
is an easy inference that animals can do the same 
to the extent of their arrested capacities, and to 
that extent they are quite as free as man. What 
then makes the latter so preeminently human, and 
therefore distinct from them? Let us see! He 
begins life without any knowledge. In a moment 
he is seeking it eagerly. For he has to discover 
everything for himself, in order to a hold on his 
own way of life, so that what he does is what his 
discoveries lead him to do. 

Indeed, if his informations had been delivered to 
him by a direct infusion of divine illumination, and 
without his power of deliberate scrutiny and sanc- 
tion, he would not have even the faintest hint of 
the functions of a free agent. And furthermore, if 
he had all knowledge at birth, he could not be free 
after the manner of our discursive humanity, unless 
perchance he had some way of comparing different 
moral traits, and exercising some elective, or else 
repressive, vehemence, in choosing between them. 

Moreover, if his singular faculty of thought did 
not bring within his reach manifold informations 
inaccessible to animals, he would be an animal, in 
all essentials. But he is not an animal, and cannot 
be brought into psychological parity with one. 



MORAL CONCEPTIONS 115 

Confessedly, there are many limits to the free- 
dom of both. A marked limitation to the animal 
is seen in the ordinance which prescribes its more 
feeble intellectual powers. That for man does not 
spring so much from an original abridgment of his 
faculties (for their range is practically unlimited) 
as from the conservative reaction of some of his 
advanced informations, especially his moral judg- 
ments, upon the mind itself. Man cannot and will 
not do many things, within easy reach of his moral 
powers, simply because he is a law unto himself, 
through the force and dignity of his moral concep- 
tions. He may increase in knowledge to any ex- 
tent, and increase of knowledge is increase of 
power. That much is granted. But power must 
conform to knowledge, and some knowledge is stur- 
dily repressive in its teachings, and will determine 
our acts accordingly. 

Eemark the consequences. We fix attention 
upon the right or wrong of something to be done. 
We ought, or we ought not, to do some particular 
thing. We hesitate. The wheels of life move on, 
but there comes upon us a solemn sense of righteous 
restraint, which we cannot away with, in exchange 
for the less restricted liberties of animals. For 
indeed, though our giftlier intelligence sends us off 
to the school of morals, and we come away with a 
new power over conduct, yet because we have risen 
to a knowledge of the obligatory character of right, 
our walk and conversation must henceforth con- 
form to the constraining pressure, and corrective 
discipline, of our new master. 



116 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

Nevertheless, man is free, by right of informa- 
tions achieved by his unique intellectual efforts. 
For these are in order to power. But now that, 
in virtue of moral informations, he has become a 
moral self, he is no longer free to act without them, 
but must go into his every act of choice in defer- 
ence to such restrictive or repressive considerations 
as inspire his soul with a conscious responsibility 
for his acts. Thenceforth, his way of life is deter- 
mined by moral conceptions, not by license. In 
exchange for unrestrained and unbridled impulses 
he has now the disciplinary constraint of moral 
truth, unfolding wide vistas of the supremacy and 
sovereignty of right and righteous governance. 

Yes, even thought itself cannot now lead him 
forth into many possible and practicable ventures. 
It is estopped by some of the very truths it has dis- 
covered. It may still go forward discursively, and 
mayhap to perilous lengths, as aforetime, but every 
such excursion tells in the steady strengthening of 
judgment. And the judgment in turn will affirm 
and validate, with ever-increasing emphasis, the 
conceptions of right and wrong, duty, obligation, 
etc. 

But this last achievement remits man to the 
inexorable primacy and rigorous reprisals of con- 
science, giving him that authoritative delimitation 
for conduct which builds on moral convictions. 

Ill 

My next study is the part played by mind in 
acquiring moral informations. I need not say that 



MORAL CONCEPTIONS 117 

this is done by the methods of logical scrutiny and 
judgment. 

We are now in the sphere of conscience. The 
actor is a unit of moral powers. And the thing 
done is therefore the work of a sole agency whose 
sovereign prerogatives are put to an interchangeable 
use between all the members, which, in turn, serve 
it in accordance with the scheme of subordination 
which prescribes their functions. 

However, there can be no personal responsibility 
until the actor has consciously informed himself of 
the constraint, or urgency, which signalizes the 
authority of moral convictions. He must be in- 
formed of their awful significance. And he must 
affirm, or opine, that he is bound by his conceptions 
of right and wrong, even though he may outrage 
conviction by bad conduct. 

The question comes up here : Whence this obliga- 
tion in morals ; on what does it found ? Our an- 
swer is that man, as a unit of power over conduct, 
frames a judgment of the good or bad qualities in 
his acts, and conceives, or affirms, himself to be 
personally responsible for their commission. And 
this power to evalue acts as good or bad, places 
him in a rank to himself among terrestrial creatures. 
But to be more explicit: Because of his uniquely 
human gifts, he is constrained (as a discoverer of 
moral sanctions and their stress) to act from a con- 
viction of his personal responsibility for their 
employment. For, once seeing their obligatory 
character, the force of the obligation is felt to be a 
personal motor in all that pertains to conduct. 



118 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 



rv 

Why a conception of the moral qualities of our 
acts turns up a further conception, that we are per- 
sonally under bonds to them, is a matter of curious 
interest. In other language, why does a rational 
witnessing of individual acts of right and wrong 
come back to us, as persons open to their moral 
pressure ? 

An answer might be gathered from previous dis- 
cussions. We are referring to that astounding 
transcendence of human reason by which we alone 
of all God's creatures can grasp the idea of a 
righteous power seated in every moral conception. 
For he who discovers such knowledge, discovers its 
power over conduct; judging himself, and others, 
by what he and they do ; even appraising his very 
thoughts by the potencies wdiich distinguish, and 
emphasize, their diverse characters. 

I take it that you are now aware of the estimate 
I put on the mind of animals. I spoke of their 
perspicacity being as clear as that of man, allow- 
ance being made for their narrower horizon. They 
reason quite knowingly, within their confined out- 
look. They have even ends and aims which they 
pursue, but they stop short of the Heaven-born 
distinctions, discovered and affirmed by the broader 
and deeper intellectual vision of man, in virtue of 
which distinctions, he comes to know of an austerity 
in moral sanctions utterly unknown to feebler in- 
telligences. They lack power of mind to frame an 
articulate conception of the divine mission of right 



MORAL CONCEPTIONS 119 

to rule in the realm of morals. And it is for this 
reason that moral power, as both constructive and 
conceptive of the equities, beauties, humanities, and 
duties, and culture of a human soul, is unknown to 
them. 

But wherein lies the diversely marked superi- 
ority of man — seeing that he also is hedged in 
with limitations, as inviolable as those of animals ? 
For, neither can demit one iota of what is peculiar 
to himself, or to itself. But man has committed 
to him the strictly human charge of doing right or 
wrong, in deference to a giftlier conception of the 
steps and extent of the obligation. He discovers 
the meum and tuum of our humanities, and in 
acquiring this knowledge he acquires its obligatory 
sanctions. 

It is to be remembered, however, that, on a first 
acquaintance with this human meum and tuum, 
the mine and thine, the right and wrong of morals, 
etc., we see only the actions of the different actors. 
This alone is our first seeing. 

And let me add that it is just here that the ideas 
of right and wrong begin to emerge in and through 
their concrete relations. And it occurs in this 
way : On one seeing himself, and others, doing acts 
involving questions of mine and thine, right and 
wrong, he is in the attitude of conceiving the moral 
character of those acts. For he remarks that they 
are accredited by a certain tone which claims and 
enforces precedence over all other actions and 
among all men. But the thing seen is not wholly 
an apprehension of right and wrong in the concrete, 



120 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

nor even a judgment of the moral quality of the 
act. It is more. A further judgment of approval 
or censure of the act, as intrinsically good or bad 
in the doer, comes in to affirm the latter's responsi- 
bility for its commission. 

It is to be observed, too, that the one who sits in 
judgment, and approves, or reprehends, is having 
himself so informed of the qualities in such partic- 
ulars of conduct, that he can side with, or against, 
them. But this is an act of choice, or the affirma- 
tion of personal preference, on evidence for it. We 
conclude, therefore, that when one sees, or does, an 
act which he conceives to be right or wrong, he is 
in fact adjudging himself to be a right or wrong 
doer; affirming choice, and, at the same time, vis- 
iting upon himself the moral reprisals of self- 
approval, or rebuke. For the judgment is that, 
inasmuch as he is the doer of the act, he is to 
be personally commended, or else reprehended. In 
either case, he is upheld by that fealty to him- 
self, and the accepted stress of his moral convic- 
tions by which he asserts a personal preference, or 
sides with what he does, and so commends or 
eschews his own acts, as good or bad, in the light 
of his moral conceptions. 

And ever thus, from the hour of responsibility, 
when one reaches a judgment of right or wrong, he 
is also affirming one of praise or censure (which is 
an affirmative or negative choice), and he is there- 
fore also affirming his personal responsibility for 
choice and conduct. 

For these reasons, therefore, I regard a judgment 



MORAL CONCEPTIONS 121 

that a given act is right or wrong for the person, as 
in fact one of approbation or blame ; for praise or 
blame is the personal pairing with, or separating 
from, the act; choosing or eschewing it. It is 
choice. 



In this connection, I may remark that, when one 
prefers, or sides with, or chooses, or wishes, or wills 
(for I nse these words interchangeably), his act is 
indivisible and. one, because he does so by all his 
momentum of trained faculties and aptitudes; by 
emotions and desires, which voice the variant pow- 
ers and qualities of his thoughts ; by choice, which 
is but the personal vehemence of the informations 
to which he cleaves in completing his acts. 

It is apparent, therefore, that, when one does as 
he chooses, he goes forth as a sole potency, conceiv- 
ing, and selecting, his way of life by a judgment on 
some alternative requirement of his own thought. 
But this is to work in the field of morals, and to 
do a work of morals is to invoke the stress of 
personal responsibility, and this latter is a clear 
departure from what obtains in simply apprehend- 
ing, analyzing, and combining ordinary phenomena. 
For indeed, so long as we have to debate, and doubt, 
what to do, the specific, personal stress of final 
choice is unattached. 

I am admitting that we may, and do, see much 
of conduct prospectively, and often stand face to 
face with the guilt or innocence which follows the 
fulfilment of our thoughts; forecasting thus our 



122 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

personal implication with the moral acts had in 
view. Much of this is but an exercise of discur- 
sive power, pure and simple. But until we say : 
I go upon my own opinion, right or wrong ; I as- 
sume the sole responsibility for my every effective 
choice or act; until we can say this, we are not 
evoking the moral stringency of a judgment of right 
or wrong. 

We see then that the soul has in it more than 
intellectual conceptions, pure and simple. For, to 
be aware only of our simply intelligent affirmations 
is to be simply gnostic. But to be paused in a state 
of moral tension, by questions which call for final 
action, is to catch the idea of a power in moral 
conceptions to bear rule in deciding all questions 
of right and wrong, mine and thine, equity, justice, 
etc. It is to be not only competently moral, but 
competently human, as well. 

It may take a longer or shorter time to make 
the point of welcoming this last discovery of 
reason, revealing, as it does, a new aspect of 
choice in the constraints of a righteous law for 
conduct. The essential thing is faithfully to 
carry out its behests. 

VI 

But is the authority of unaided human reason 
our sole support for this universal sway of right ? 
Certainly not, if indeed, as I have endeavored to 
show, every exterior power is so far an aid to 
thought that it leads it forth afield to its wider 
supports. 



MORAL CONCEPTIONS 123 

But cannot we point to some thing superior to 
finite thought for an obligation so intensely per- 
sonal that it vehemently cries out: "Something 
must be done, and something other must not " ? 

Allow me, however, first to test the strength of 
a judgment of right and wrong. The subject calls 
for a more careful treatment than I can pretend to 
give it. It is not, as I have before stated, to take a 
careless view of an act that may be conceived to be 
either right or wrong. It is rather to discover, and 
put a value upon, the right and wrong of individual 
acts, and so be in a position to award and apportion 
merit and demerit to the respective actors. 

Now, a mere casuist may make what his little 
pate pleases of the force of this judgment. But 
its one ineffaceable trait no man can disturb. As 
a psychological constituent, imbedded in the con- 
ception itself, it so commands our homage that 
it can never be divested of one iota of its peculiar 
stress upon our conduct. 

But to return to our inquiry ! As the affirmance 
of our own moral powers, as seen in the oughtness 
of our conceptions, is the subjective ground of our 
obligation, so a conception of divine intelligence, as 
our moral governor and original furnisher of moral 
susceptibilities, must reinforce the earlier subjec- 
tive discovery. 

For, when the idea of right and wrong is seen 
to be a fundamental and beneficent conception of 
One inexorably just, the obligation comes home to 
us, fortified and justified by divine sanctions. And 
further ! When, by the help of this wider and diviner 



124 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

knowledge, we pause to estimate the practical hon- 
esties of conduct, we shall side with our judgment 
emotionally, with a profounder regard for what is 
involved in an act for which we deem ourselves 
personally responsible. 

VII 

As a further qualification and development of 
our contention, in respect of the march of thought 
into the realm of morals, I submit a few remarks 
upon the problem of a revelation of morals by God. 

This I may not linger upon, because the Eevela- 
tion itself, like everything else we witness for, can 
be accredited only through the evidences of moral 
transformations perpetually affirmed in affirming 
what we and others are doing and thinking when 
engaged in our ordinary avocations, and without 
which it were utterly impossible to appreciate the 
evidences for a Eevelation. 

And here, I would have the reader to pardon me 
for making room for sundry statements, to prevent 
misconception. 

I am aware that all civilized and Christian peo- 
ples, nowadays, are sedulously taught of the ideas 
of morals by pious parents, pastors, Sunday schools, 
Bible classes, the catechism, etc. But whilst ad- 
mitting all this, what I am contending for is that 
tlie Revelation would fail of effect, if man, or even 
child, lacked the capacity to remark upon, and 
evalue, the evidence for morals founded on what 
we observe of our acts. For if these acts have no 
moral significance to our intelligence, the Eevelation 



MORAL CONCEPTIONS 125 

could never be accredited to us. The truth, is, no 
man can believe anything, Eevelation or not, unless 
from his human point of view he can see abundant 
and overwhelming evidences of its truth. Belief 
must have evidence of some kind to support it. If, 
for instance, it were revealed to us of the nineteenth 
century that the sun is borne aloft in the heavens 
by a pair of enormous wings that propelled him 
through the immensities, this would be a revelation 
absolutely incredible, because absolutely void of any 
tangible evidence. 

But, now, note a distinction ! If, for instance, we 
were told by scientists that the sun sailed through 
the interminable spaces in quest of little pellets of 
fire, upon which he fed and fattened, this would be 
a revelation that we might, in time, be taught to 
accept, for reasons dimly plausible ; allowance be- 
ing made for any poetic or literary embellishments 
employed in announcing such a sensational discov- 
ery, and remembering that science is, even now, on 
the lookout for the discovery of the way in which 
the sun keeps up, or replenishes, his fires. 

So of B,evelation. If any one of average intelli- 
gence is given a show of evidence, he will believe 
it, the more so, because he has a revelation of God 
in the flesh, as seen in the moral conceptions which 
he achieves. And, therefore, if it be accredited 
at all, it will have to lean upon that God-given 
reach of mental vision by which we conceive the 
austere sanctions of morals. For human conduct 
is determined by the tenor and tone of the concep- 
tions that enter into it. 



126 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

But how fares the moral attitude of peoples who 
have had uo revealed religion? There are many 
such even now. Have they no morals ? Take 
China, for an example. Her sturdy civilization 
and morals have braved the ravages of time from a 
period anteceding the pyramids of Egypt. Who 
taught them morals ? Who could teach them Chris- 
tian morals, at any time before the days of St. Paul ? 
But, even he confessed that the heathen were " a 
law unto themselves." But, if this their law was 
not a revelation, whence came it, except through a 
power of mind to conceive the "law." On the 
other hand, if you show me a people without 
morals of some kind to steady its eccentric gyra- 
tions, I will show you a mob of unintellectual 
wretches. 



CHAPTEE XII 

Restatements 

Some desultory remarks, growing out of previous 
discussions, may find place here. 

1. In default of objects within reach of mind, 
the power of thought would fade into nothingness. 
Without mind, the same objects would be zero. 
Again, if our informations are imperfect, the power 
to shape conduct would be equally imperfect, if not 
wholly rooted out of being. For, just as we lack 
knowledge, we suffer a corresponding shortage in 
all our possibilities. Wisdom is added power. And 
therefore, if thought never came home to us with 
a distinct accession of power for combating other 
powers, we should be more than conditioned by 
those powers. We should be their slaves. 

2. In these remarks, I am endeavoring to fix 
attention upon one or two points : — 

(a) By an ordinance of God, there are sensations 
whose source of power is outside of man's initia- 
tive. And being outside, and therefore beyond our 
power of initiation, they interfere with our free- 
dom no more than our bodily members interfere 
with it; their office being determined by a pre- 
arrangement of superior wisdom, for helping us 
into a position where we can help ourselves. 

(b) By the same ordinance (of course, with the 

127 



128 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

help of body, sensation, environment, etc.) there is 
projected upon the plane of being the faculty for 
discursion and personal power, whose office it is to 
discover a knowledge of ourselves and our exteri- 
orities, and thereby deal with ourselves, and things 
not ourselves, in view of personal responsibility for 
what we do. 

3. When things are significant, it is their signifi- 
cance that appeals to mind. And for that reason, 
the active, curious, seeing intelligence makes oppor- 
tunity of everything about it, even the most obscure 
and unobtrusive traits, to turn them to some ad- 
vantage connected with our hopes and fears, manner 
and plan of life, business, etc. For the future of 
every one is born of the rational estimate he puts 
upon the significance, or meaning, hid away in the 
appearance and behavior of the things which con- 
front his intelligence. And, if we could not inter- 
pret these signs, we could not employ them in 
mapping out, and working up to, our future. 

4. It is to be noted that in all my contention, I 
have given sensor irritations the power to act on 
me dynamically, though not cognitively; whereas 
I have for my own part, left myself free to act 
cognitively and even dynamically. jSTow, if this 
be a correct psychology, cannot my thought affirm 
these exterior dynamics, and so get me, thus far, 
on the road to a more familiar acquaintance with 
my neighbors, and the mine and thine of our inter- 
course. You sec, they cannot supplant my thought, 
though they can, and do, act on me. But here the 
reciprocity is thoroughgoing. I cannot act for, or 



RESTATEMENTS 129 

in the place of, my neighbors, nor they, for, or in 
the place of, me ; but each can act upon the other. 
The law applies as well to one as to the other. What 
is permitted, and what is inhibited, involves both. 

Now then, if I can know these my neighbors, 
and work up to all I know of them, I may so 
modify their action as to fortify my own powers, 
and control, or modify, theirs, to my profit. In 
other words, I can compel them to yield me service, 
to the full extent of my rational discoveries. 

5. We have seen matter and mind acting on each 
other, the former delivering a sensorial excitation, 
as a preliminary to the co-action of the latter's con- 
trasting powers. And the conclusion to which I 
perpetually recur is that any potency, which only 
conditions a free cause, is but a preliminary to the 
latter's hold on its diverse resources, and cannot, 
therefore, derogate from its freedom, and for the 
plain reason that what is thus exterior can, by no 
means, usurp the prerogatives of a power whose 
function is ideation and discursion. 

For, thought is equipped with unique and in- 
violable resources of its own, by virtue of which it 
must proceed consciously; must be attentive, and, 
to that extent, discursive and volitional; must be 
perceptive, conceptive, considerate, judicial, and, 
therefore, personal, self-reliant, and responsible, ere 
yet it can be said to be in a position to act for itself. 
And, if this be so, there can be no question of its 
freedom, for it has had its own rational way of 
dealing with itself, and things not itself. 

But we now turn to other problems. 

K 



Part III 
THE POWER OF INFORMATIONS 



CHAPTER XIII 
Introductory Eemarks 

In the preceding discussions, I offered some ex- 
planations of how we acquire knowledges ; holding 
that they are conscious achievements, and, therefore, 
faithful products, of mind. My object now is quite 
different. Hereafter, I shall presume that we have 
been measurably stocked with knowledge, and are 
now casting about to see what we can do with it. 
" Knowledge is (personal) power " ; and, inasmuch 
as, by supposition, we are now somewhat conversant 
with its pretensions, I feel like giving it the benefit 
of an experimental display of its peculiar dynamics. 

It is apparent that I shall still have to do with 
ideas ; but not now, as mere acquisitions, for I am 
regarding them as potencies dominating conduct. 
They are, therefore, henceforth, to be viewed as 
personal factors employed in consummating the 
work of thought in hand. It will be my aim, ac- 
cordingly, to show that the real efficient in conduct 
is the power of knowledge, information, opinion, 
conception, judgment, etc. 

I 

You are doubtless familiar with the theory of 
Locke which likens mind to a sheet of blank paper 
133 



134 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

written upon by sensations and foisted upon our 
attention. Such a crude theory effectually estops 
the individuality of thought, for the paper is not 
even sensitive. It is a blank, simply and sheerly 
passive and receptive. It has no activity which is 
distinctly its own. It can neither know a sensation, 
nor define its functions and connectives. It has no 
way of acquiring knowledge. 

But let the paper theory pass. Locke would 
deny much of all this. But Locke is inconsequent, 
vacillating, inconsistent, and could not accomplish 
the impossible. His theory is a failure. We can- 
not delay upon it. 

However, my immediate task is to show that it is 
misleading, in that it dwells upon what is delivered 
to thought, and not on what thought does. I shall 
presently make this point. 

Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the office of 
thought has been a mystery on which writers have 
offered many a brave conjecture, without clearing 
up the mystery. But, now that we begin to make 
some steady progress in the remorseless capture of 
facts, the mystery may subside as the facts ac- 
cumulate. 

II 

Availing myself of these recent advances, I may 
venture to pronounce a theory more in keeping 
with the power of thought, as a discursive energy 
competent for its appointed work. 

Locke summoned us to note the power of sensa- 
fcions in furnishing thought with something for its 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 135 

study. In a spirit of liberality, I may presume 
this to be Locke's view. And it is correct, when 
relieved of its one-sidedness. On the contrary, and 
in order to clear up the problem, I would, in con- 
trast, dwell upon what thought does as a discursive 
energy working upon things not itself, but ever 
with the intention of promoting some interest per- 
sonal to itself. 

My theory is exemplified by the spectacle of little 
children playing in my front yard. Snow is falling 
fast and furious, and they are sporting in its fleecy 
folds, delightedly imbibing the joy of childish 
power, spite of struggles with the warring elements. 
For the chubbiest cheek among them has the cour- 
age of his infantile convictions, and welcomes the 
fray with the enthusiasm of a would-be Roman 
gladiator. 

The reader may contrast this picture with that 
of Locke. And it might be helpful, in this con- 
nection, to bear in mind that I began my lucubra- 
tions with a little nursling of the cradle. It will 
be remembered that we saw it battling with environ- 
ment, conditions, etc., inner and outer, innumerable. 
For we allowed these exteriorities the full benefit 
of their offensive, but limited dynamics. And now, 
it is only fair that we should be as liberal with our 
child, giving it, likewise, an opportunity for a dis- 
play of its counter-activities. Every power acting 
on the child was greeted with the kindest apprecia- 
tions. And we explained how the youngster gladly 
caught up knowledge, and waxed stronger. For 
getting knowledge is getting personal power. And 



136 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

now, it behooves us frankly to acknowledge this 
power, — seen in children, and seen in men. And 
yet children and men are so very, very finite that 
they cannot act in disregard of the objects which 
act on them. So of all things exterior ; for these 
also are similarly conditioned by the objects that 
act on them. 

I have heretofore remarked upon all this. For 
child or man, or animal or thing, or "principalities 
or powers," or things present and to come, are 
bound by the fundamental laws for their being 
and interactions. They did not come of a sudden 
without roots extending away back to some original 
thought in God. I have likewise offered an expla- 
nation of how all these exteriorities contributed 
to unfold the slumbering intelligence of our little 
folk, giving it place as a power uniquely personal 
by reason of its preeminent moral, discursive, and 
progressive traits. 

Children have all these distinctively human 
traits, then ! 

Otherwise, to revert to my illustration, whence 
comes this sportive tilt of mind and muscle with 
the pitiless forces of nature? Is it not the veri- 
table stepping forth of a counter-activity with re- 
sources other than material and naturalistic; even 
a conscious, eager, thoughtful energy that makes 
conquest, as it cultivates the powers of thought? 
Mind can have no life and no activity except as it 
knows. For, when it is once known that nature is 
governed by laws so tempered that our finite intel- 
ligence can discover their meaning, and employ 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 137 

this knowledge in furthering our personal ends, 
then, the joy of triumph may leap from our hearts, 
as we go forth to battle in the might of our convic- 
tions. 

Ill 

The inquiry to which I devote the present 
discussion may be subdivided into chapters, in 
accordance with the general plan marked out for 
resolving all knowledge into the questions of power 
which it includes. 

But I am not to be understood as attempting to 
draw the line between the different provinces of 
knowledge with entire accuracy. It is sufficient 
for my purpose to take up in order such as will 
measurably present the fact of power in knowledge. 
I premise, therefore, with some needed distinctions. 

Informations may be divided into two general 
classes, as follows : — 

1. Those which give us facts in concrete or 
individual presentations, after the manner of the 
child's first visual apprehension of an object, when 
we have the result of an off-hand, first acquaintance 
with the object. These may be termed the strictly 
perceptive informations. They will not, however, 
be separately dwelt upon in what follows, chiefly 
because they but hold up before the mind the dif- 
ferent objects so affirmed for closer study and elab- 
oration, in order to a better knowledge of their 
significance for our discursive purposes. 

2. The other class is born of that much more 
reconstructive power of mind which discovers and 



138 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

coordinates the parts or attributes which constitute 
a concrete object, or objects, as we are enabled to 
conceive and affirm them and their kindred affilia- 
tions, or the mutual dependence subsisting between 
a group of different objects interacting under the 
law for their social intercourse. 

I need scarcely repeat that all such informations 
are worked up from the things of self and its 
exteriorities, and carefully compared, in order to 
strengthen and extend our own powers, every item 
of which tends to increase our personal or individ- 
ual powers ; for such conceptions enable us to act 
for ourselves, and hence are prized according to 
their efficiency in accomplishing our purposes. 
They are our true conceptions, or informations, 
being discursive, constructive, and efficient in con- 
duct. And here truth is valued, not so much as an 
isolated idea, good for its spectacular significance, 
but as a something we would carefully inquire into 
and work up into its distinctive relations to our- 
selves and other things from which we would wrest 
some secret of power, or advantage to ourselves. 

Now, it is this last class I am proposing to con- 
sider; and it is divided into two subordinate ones : — 

(1) Preparatory Informations. 

(2) Actile or intimating Informations. 

I am not now concerned with describing the mere 
facts of conception, proper to either class. My 
main object is to call attention to, and to emplia- 
Bize, the power of knowledge remarked in our acts, 
giving us the operative and finalizing aspect of 
knowledge. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 139 

One more remark! Mind is equally active, effi- 
cient, and constructive, whether engaged in acquir- 
ing, or utilizing knowledge. For every conception 
is born of the constructive exploitations that achieve 
it. It is nevertheless true that the mind's acquisi- 
tions are one thing, and the ultimating stress of 
such acquisitions in actualizing the purposes and 
plans of life, is another thing. 



CHAPTER XIV 
Preparatory Informations 

Heretofore I have been engaged in the study of 
informations, but not as yet concluding what to do 
with them. What I propose now is to regard them 
as discoveries or achievements, standing before con- 
duct as a ready, or else expectant, impulsion or 
cause exercising a directive, controlling, or decisive 
power over conduct. 

I 

I explain briefly. All knowledge is obtained 
through the metamorphic scrutiny of attention and 
affirmation, on evidence. We observe and distin- 
guish parts in an ensemble of contents, i.e., judge 
on evidence. And this process is resorted to, it 
may be, with a blushing and halting anticipation 
of clearer results, even when we are demarking our 
first ideas ; a subsequent and more subtle elabora- 
tion bringing in discursive informations or proper 
rational discoveries. For mind, even at the very 
beginning of its career, must inspect the instream- 
ing of exterior (or even interior) impressions in 
order to construct ideas of them. 

II 

But what concerns us now are such informations 
as are framed in view of some ulterior result, and, 
140 



PREPARATORY INFORMATIONS 141 

for that reason, are both constructive and prospec- 
tive. Here, the soul is not only inquisitive and 
acquisitive, but a pronounced power of innovation, 
preparing for a work of thought. It will, there- 
fore, have to ascertain the practical limits of its 
own, and other powers, and measure the participa- 
tion of each in a result still in the future, and so 
be in a position to make use of such discoveries as 
may open the way to complete a work that promises 
some conceived advantage to itself. And here, too, 
it must ascertain what it can do, and also what it 
prefers doing; and it must, most literally, acquire 
this knowledge, ere it can ever become intelligently 
active and directive. 

I am proceeding cautiously. For I have to con- 
struct my way as I advance, in tenebras, in ignotum. 

We are, as I said, about to apply our knowledges ; 
employing them as powers going into deeds for 
which we are responsible. But this cannot be done 
in disregard of what we conceive to be conducive 
to our good. We shall, hence, be preparing to do 
a contemplated work, for some reason intensely 
human and personal. The logic of enlightened 
self-interest and self -protection is to know and do. 
And, therefore, we keep a sharp lookout for our 
interests, seeking such informations as we may 
need when we come to act. 

Observe that we have now reached a stage in 
our psychological pilgrimage where we begin to 
project desires, hopes, fears, joys, purposes, etc., 
bearing upon our happiness, and to ask ourselves 
whether we are, or are not, so conversant with our 



142 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

own and other powers that we can secure a limited 
control of the latter, to our own betterment. 

But all the aforementioned informations are an 
accumulation of so much personal power in pros- 
pect of actual fruition. They pertain to the future, 
and bring under review a multitude of things 
thought to be promotive of our happiness and 
which we may not ignore without palpable stultifi- 
cation. And if we do not propose to utilize them 
in the present, it is because we are judiciously re- 
served until the day for final action. More tersely 
put, I may say: We have been prosecuting our 
inquiries in prospect of appeasing our cultivated 
wants and would act even as we know. 

Our problem is, therefore, a question of the 
power of knowledge, and how to employ it deci- 
sively in the acts of a soul alive to intelligent and 
moral requirements. And we shall have to com- 
X^are our powers with those of our surroundings, 
and to decide what we shall do with ourselves, and 
what with our surroundings. 

The object of pursuit is not now in existence 
and ripe to our contemplation;, but we must open 
a way for doing a work of the future that, on its 
completion, will evidence the power of our thoughts. 
And if we do that work, we give the world a 
new something which had no existence until our 
thought went forth to establish it, — for our praise 
or blame. It is in this way, and with this intent, 
that we canvass and solve every problem of life. 

And here again we see that knowledge is personal 
power j the power of our ideas. 



PREPARATORY INFORMATIONS 143 

Proceeding further with our analysis, we note 
another distinction. 

As our intellectual powers expand, we become 
more intelligently inquisitive. Our native pro- 
pensity for knowledge may be satisfied with the 
mere acquisition of knowledge. But once having 
it in hand, we have its power, and in turn become 
more intelligently and definitely anxious to test 
its practical possibilities, and so we begin to rate 
things as useful, aesthetic, good, or bad, etc., in 
respect of ourselves and others; and the ever- 
springing sanguineness that comes from repeated 
triumphs of thought prompts us to make prelimi- 
nary investigations bearing on the object had in 
view. 

But not until we are in charge of our rational 
guides can we venture to realize any just expecta- 
tion. Meantime, we have been weighing the facts, 
in order to determine their relative value for get- 
ting within reach of our object. 

in 

In practice, the process resorted to is partly 
remembrance and comparison, but, preeminently, 
it is a preliminary wrangle for a working theory 
involving the exercise of constructive powers, 
whereby the potencies of things about us are 
retouched with the elastic transformations of mind, 
and so brought to display a range of power denied 
to their unaided nature. 

For instance, here is something still in the future. 
It will take years of thought and muscle to work it 



144 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

up. For it cannot be realized, now and here. But, 
as it is in the line of expectancy and hopefulness, 
we make a vigorous effort to consummate our pur- 
poses. And it is so that, by the steady pains- 
taking of thought, it is brought, nearer and nearer, 
to completion. By and by, it is a finished prod- 
uct of reason. It is now realized, and in position, 
as a veritable creation; a new something, and ours, 
by virtue of the power of our thought. 

A fact like the following is not an unusual oc- 
currence: A number of farmers are thinking of 
establishing a bank with a capital of one hundred 
thousand dollars. One hundred farmers agree to 
contribute; each one thousand dollars. But where 
is the money to come from, seeing they have none 
in hand? They resolve to go home and work for 
it, laying by their surplus earnings annually. At 
the expiration of four or five years each is ready 
with the contribution agreed upon, and the bank 
is established and officered. Here is a new crea- 
tion that, a few years agone, had no existence 
whatever. But it confronts us now, a brave com- 
mercial structure which for years hung on the 
constructive and prospective informations of its 
projectors. 

But now the same farmers would build a road. 
And how is this to be done? They put their heads 
together and conclude upon its feasibility, prospec- 
tively plan its execution, and ultimately build it 
as planned. 

The same plan is adopted whenever the ubiqui- 
tous railroad calls for money. And I might make 



PREPAKATORY INFORMATIONS 145 

mention of divers other monuments of constructive 
thought, such as churches, temples, art museums, 
etc., conceived and determined upon by a consid- 
eration of the moral and aesthetic aspirations of 
cultivated peoples. 

I select these facts of every day's observation, 
in order to bring out the point, that the power of 
informations prepares the way for our attacking 
all the problems of life and business. For every 
information is just so much mental power, and 
every effort made is a tactful, careful, constructive 
move of thought toward a result not yet reached. 

The field of man's work is committed to himself. 
It rests upon him, therefore, to acquire the requi- 
site pupillary knowledge, ere he would take the 
plunge into business. If he seek his own good, 
he must inform himself, and labor to possess it. 
He must know of his wants and wishes, and strive 
to realize them. His chief concern is himself, and 
what pertains to his welfare. And yet, if he would 
make sure of his own good, he will have to allow 
for what is not himself. 

All knowledge has an emphasis pointing to con- 
duct, and we have to await the day when, after 
much thought, we can reach conclusions on which 
to act. We see that some things can be entreated 
to confer a good; some, a beauty, and other some, 
a utility. And we like the flavor of this discovery 
and plan to possess them. We have a boundless 
field for exploration wherein to get knowledge and 
qualify ourselves for compassing our ends. This 
is but to get ready for work and look forward to 



116 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

its accomplishment; appreciating our discoveries 
as instrumental to the object in view. 

In any event, and in respect of any proposed 
work, we must see and interpret certain traits in 
the things we are contemplating which promise 
points applicable to the problem before us, and then 
aligning cause and effect with the direction of our 
purposes, conclude upon a course of conduct that 
will secure our object. 

This will be apparent in what follows. We may 
be conversant with corn, as merchandise. But now 
we wish to grow it. Here it behooves us to be 
prospective, constructive, and practical. It is a 
question of bread, and a living competency. So, 
we must satisfy ourselves that the land is produc- 
tive, and that we have the means for its cultivation. 
And, therefore, the question of labor is considered : 
horses and men; their hire and board; and whether 
they are trustworthy, tractable, serviceable, etc. 
And, if we are satisfied on these points, our pro- 
spection is completed, and we go to work. 

But wherein consists the peculiarity of such 
informations? Only in this: They are rational 
powers held in reserve for the future. They mean 
business, hut, for the present, it is only a proposed 
venture requiring special thought. Think of it! 
The fanner has to control himself, lest he act 
prematurely, lie must have command of natural 
forces, and bend them to his purposes. But in 
order to this, he must know them with a knowl- 
edge so searching that he can discern the supreme 
correlations existing between things individual, 



PREPARATORY INFORMATIONS 147 

but capable of co-acting, if needed in furthering 
a contemplated result. In other words, he must 
shape his way to acts through the special con- 
siderations that go to establish them. 

IV 

I foresee that my account of preparatory informa- 
tions will be imperfect, unless I allow for their 
effect in qualifying the mind itself for its peculiar 
work. A brief exposition of this must suffice. 

Every accession of such knowledge adds to the 
mind's efficiency; for every efficiency is born of 
the mind in its proximate antecedent condition, 
and so carried over into the new birth. Hence 
comes the fact that all our informations become in 
time a psychological investment looking forward 
to conduct, and finally reappearing there as the 
result of our previous thoughts. 

For whilst thought is being trained, it is accumu- 
lating a fund of prospective informations which 
are intrenched in the faculties, and held over for 
future exigencies; acquisitions of the past reap- 
pearing as expert efficiencies of the present. 
Indeed, if we have knowledge through an intelli- 
gent appreciation of facts, we must found on our 
previous acquisitions and present dexterity ; every 
succeeding information being dependent on the 
view the mind can then take of its then wants. 
Wherefore, as we grow in knowledge, we augment 
the reserves of information which continue with 
the soul as trained, or educated, efficiencies subject 
to our call. 



148 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

And yet, it is still true, that when we would do 
something new, we shall have to reform our out- 
look, somewhat. For we have to discover, and 
consider, not alone how to make use of our present 
acquisitions, be they what they may, but how to 
meet wants which are just now responding to our 
sharpened apperceptions. 



CHAPTER XV 

ACTILE OR UlTIMATING INFORMATIONS 

In the matter of actively employing our rational 
faculties, much of their character is brought out on 
a limited experience and observation of the reasons 
why we act at all. I am now referring to the be- 
ginnings of our experience. For instance, we are 
meditating a possible, or probable, act to be done 
in futuro. Inquire now, why are we contemplating 
such an act. The answer is : We have reasons for 
it. In this way it will be seen that we have a rea- 
son for pondering any future act. 



But now, if we regard man as an actor going 
beyond his preparatory lucubrations into perform- 
ance, we find that he takes this last step also, — 
because he has reasons for it. He has had, we may 
say, a minimum of experience of the first kind, and 
this may be a reason why he would know some- 
thing of the power forward of his purely subjective, 
but preparatory, reasons or contemplations ; the fact 
of his being finite affording a sufficient reason why 
he should try to discover the extent of both his own 
and other powers. At all events, the efficiency in 
both kinds of informations is a controlling reason. 
149 



150 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

And similarly a controlling reason, good or bad, 
determines his willingness to do anything. Yea, 
even as his mind has been schooled to value good 
or bad acts, so will it have a corresponding se- 
quence of acts. For what is a responsible or per- 
sonal act must ever answer to the power of some 
foregoing opinion; man being an actor solely by 
virtue of the power of his thoughts. Indeed, every 
act of man has an individual character which rests 
on the different kind of informations that inform it. 
And hence, we are driven to the conclusion that we 
can neither begin, nor continue, a train of reason- 
ing, nor give effect to any thought, in any way, 
without this controlling efficiency of our every 
thought. 

II 

Having done with the above preliminary explana- 
tions, I hope we are now prepared for considering 
the problem of actile or ultimating informations, 
more distinctly. It is to be remarked that every 
information, on reaching its final stage, has passed 
beyond the condition of a mere subjective acquisi- 
tion, and pushed its way to a final term. For, 
when it begets a completed work, it has assumed 
that last change which a knowledge of the approved 
time and place, and other finalizing touches of 
action, determines. It becomes an operating power 
in what we do, then and there. 

But this last phase, too, is a question of one's 
reasons, 01 desires, or choice ; and it ultimates, either 
one or the other, as we may choose to regard them. 



ACTILE OR ULTIMATING INFORMATIONS 151 

For, as will hereafter be explained, one cannot do 
an act without desiring to do it, nor desire to do it 
without some reason or motive for the desire j nor 
indeed do it in any way at all without choice, which 
is simply the final stage of our operative or actile 
thought, or reason, or desire. And, therefore, our 
desire to do it is some reason or motive, ending in 
preference or choice, which is the ultimate term or 
decisive phase of our reason for doing it. Choice 
is reason, or motive, ultimated. 

I remark, further, that if we ultimate, or give 
the final tone to an idea or information, we do it on 
choice, and choice is the actile power in a given 
information which decides our personal preference 
and responsibility. So then, to ultimate the in- 
formation is to give it our personal adherence in 
act, which is preference or choice. But this is to 
liberate its actile or finalizing power. And, there- 
fore, when we say we are responsible for our opin- 
ions, we mean that we have given them the last 
touch of final approval or choice. 

Ill 

Glancing for a moment at the moral aspects of 
the problem, we are to consider such informations 
as urge us with an authority intensely stringent. 
And now, if we ultimate these last, we have gone 
upon an act of responsible choice which expresses 
the sovereign power of moral convictions. 

But why are these so urgent ? 

Because having, once for all, adventured their 
discovery, we have uncovered an element of vehe- 



152 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

mence in them, presented, it may be, more tensely, 
but not more indisputably, than that of any of our 
ordinary informations. For every information has 
an actile vehemence of its own, which qualitatively 
distinguishes it from all others. And now, if we 
are to act on these, we must have the light of other 
informations, to determine the question of acting, 
then and there. And therefore, again, the reason 
for coming to an act of choice is some ancillary 
information with power to precipitate and ultimate 
the force of the main one. And I may add that, 
as the urgency in moral, or for that matter, in any 
other conceptions, is itself a discovery of thought, 
it will be acted on, finally or not, just as the mind 
has been trained to prize it in comparison with such 
as found on slighter considerations. 

IV 

I have, before, explained that thought lives by 
knowing ; acquiring mental power, and utilizing this 
power, in its own way, and for good and sufficient 
reasons. I have also pointed out that ultimating 
informations and desires are but different aspects of 
the same thing. For the latter are present and ulti- 
mated, in every act of choice, because they do but 
express the emotional or personal phase of the ulti- 
mating information (or reason). 

Inasmuch, then, as desires represent the omnivo- 
rous gatherings of thought, they perform the office 
of furnishing us with a provisional orientation upon 
which we may act, on choice or preference. And, 
therefore, if thoughl does gather up all knowledges 



ACTILE OR ULTIMATING INFORMATIONS 153 

and give them the aforementioned, provisional ori- 
entation, as seen in our desires, all we have to do, 
when we go upon some final act or procedure, is 
either to act with such desires as we may then pre- 
fer, or else cast out these, and act on such as we 
can espouse from a different point of view. 

It may be objected, however, that desires often 
exercise a very notable pressure on thought and con- 
duct. This we have no reason to deny, especially 
in view of the fact that the desires themselves, with 
their quantity and quality of impelling force, have 
been mediated by the mind, and the pressure is con- 
sequently intelligent and voluntary, and that we are 
supporting both desires and their pressure by a 
rational estimate of the suitability of the objects 
desired to our condition and circumstances. The 
pressure is of our own procurement and so must 
bespeak our mind. 

For whenever we come to an act of choosing or 
preferring, or fulfilling a given desire, we shall be 
found desiring something intensely, or, vice versa, 
-languidly, just as we are informed of and value the 
urgency at the instant of preference. 

So, too, we may desire, or choose, or prefer, friv- 
olously, because our informations (and consequently, 
our appreciation) of the urgency are not serious ; or 
indifferently, because they are not satisfactory; or 
even stupidly, because they are inadequate, etc. 
And here, again, it is evident that the so-called 
pressure or urgency of desires lies in the force of 
our convictions, and that both responsible choice 
and fulfilled desire express that force. 



154 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

The Gulf Stream is impelled by the heat of the 
sun. But here is a psychological stream of desires 
propelled by the fervor of rational convictions and 
evaluations ; a fervor, let me repeat, which is awak- 
ened, and continued in being, solely by the power 
of thought. 



A few words about desires finally rejected may be 
allowed in this place. 

The ipse dixit of thought has aforetime stored 
these with their measure and degree of preparative, 
or provisional, choice. But whether they be chosen 
and acted upon is left to some finalizing thought or 
opinion. 

A similar exposition applies to motives. For 
what are they but the soul's rational hold on 
what it can choose or finally desire ? Or, we may 
preferably define them as desires looked at as a 
rational, or moral, impulsion or personal fervor, 
with a clear purgation of unthinking animalism. 

So also of inducements. These are indifferently* 
rational impulsions or rational desires, either sub- 
jective or objective; the first looking within upon 
the intent ; the latter regarding, more particularly, 
the reasons drawn from the object concerning which 
we are taking an interest, — reasons why it should 
be prized or valued as ancillary to the true purpose 
within. In either case, the determination issues 
from the intent or purpose, or, if you prefer, the 
desire or personal potency found in the final thought. 

And, therefore, in this regard, an objective in- 



ACTILE OR ULTIMATING INFORMATIONS 155 

ducement is in fact a subjective desire, motive, or 
purpose. In other words, we may view the power 
of an objective inducement as that of a conception 
in order to rational action, our every act being de- 
termined by a subjective cause, or the power of 
some final thought conditioned on the quality of 
mind we have on hand, as the result of the oppor- 
tunities we have improved. But these points will 
receive fuller explication in subsequent discussions. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Powers in Aid of Free Determinations 

This chapter is not intended as a mere summary 
of previous discussions. The powers under consid- 
eration are all such, as, when correctly understood, 
may be taken to be for an aid to thought, volition, 
or free determinations. They, indeed, operate on 
thought, in special ways, but are not its volitional 
powers. 



I begin with the Appetencies. I may describe 
them as native impulsions, born with the child. As 
such, they present themselves as sensorial visita- 
tions, ere yet the child has come into the possession 
of any idea, emotion, desire, or knowledge of any 
kind, unless I except a confused cognition of their 
simultaneous irruption upon its attention, at the in- 
stant of birth. And, therefore, is the child startled, 
as I have said, by the presence of such unbidden 
and unheralded strangers, at such a time. 

I shall speak very guardedly of this dark delta 
that begirts the infant soul. Meantime, let us await 
disclosures. The desire centre is not slow to mani- 
fest itself, in response to some discovery of the 
rational. For the rational is never off duty from 
166 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 157 

the beginning. The moral enters the lists, later on. 
At the moment of birth, there is small chance to 
accentuate definite thought and action; and for a 
brief interval, thought must have a herculean task 
to clutch its first full idea. The situation is em- 
barrassing. Here is life full of blind impulsions, 
and here, too, is thought without its first articulate 
idea, and only ready for its discovery. 

Facts will testify of the result. There is some- 
thing in the sudden fission from the foetal state 
of the child to its separate life in the outer world, 
something in the first freshness of its animal im- 
pulsions, something, too, in its tender openness to 
unwonted visitations — but more in God's law for all 
these infantile experiences. But the child breathes. 
Its separate life is revealing itself, and, with life, 
the centre for appetencies is born unto a state of 
agnostic sensation and impulsion. 

And now, the question comes up, how can the 
child pass these adamantine barriers ? Can it ever 
get beyond its blind gropings ? For, as native 
instigations, and therefore, blindly active and im- 
pulsive, the mission of the appetencies is not then 
known, and cannot then be known, until thought 
mediates between them and their, then, unknown 
objects, testifying, thus, to their ancillary or auxil- 
iary office, in respect of its own cognitive functions. 

II 

The office of Native Dispositions may now be 
considered. These also are original furnishings in 
aid of thought and personal responsibility. They 



158 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

constitute what is peculiar in the tone and temper 
— the bias, mental and moral, of men, as individ- 
uals, and so distinguish one man from another. 
The same remarks apply to man's physique, as 
part of his original endowment. But now, what 
shall be said of this formidable array of native 
powers, and their bearing on thought, or volition ? 
We answer : They are simply and solely a subjective 
environment, which does for man, after the manner 
of external conditions; like those, for instance, 
which differentiate the Chinese, or Polynesians, 
from Teutons, or Caucasians, whereby we have 
distinct groups of peoples and individuals; each 
with a destiny which smells of his locality and 
surroundings. 

As original, our native dispositions are involun- 
tary to us. And as manifested in the active details of 
life, some regard them as equally involuntary there. 

I have, once before, demurred to this last view, 
by explaining that our entire, original stock of 
competencies, so far as and ivhen they affect con- 
duct, are under the strictest supervision of thought, 
and thus become intelligent motors whose objec- 
tives await the discovery and appraisement of the 
latter. For if we grant them the full force of an 
animal impulse, they would still lack the power 
to make us act blindly, when we would act deliber- 
ately and knowingly. But when Ave employ them, 
on the morrow of adult responsibility, all such as we 
have any reason for entreating hospitably are as vol- 
untary as a discriminating apperception can make 
them, in exercising its right of choice and sanction. 



POWERS IN ADD OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 159 

So then, if we hold them to be involuntary, 
when manifested as modifiers of character and 
habits, they are to be regarded as goods in stock, 
like environment, conditions, the potter's clay, etc. ; 
the voluntary efficiency having a like power over 
them, in some way consistent with its free deter- 
minations and distinctions. 

Ill 

As coming within the scope of my present in- 
quiry, I mention some natural states of the body, 
such as vitality, power and its opposite, health and 
its opposite; the two latter opening the way for a 
feeling of unrest, or vague, disquieting apprehen- 
sions, etc., etc. For the most part, these are not 
so clamorous in their primitive demands as to 
require any particular statements. Indeed, they 
partake more of the character of sensations than 
appetencies. Nevertheless, I regard them as con- 
tributing a quite perceptible, native efficiency com- 
ing in before an act of thought, as auxiliary to its 
peculiar transformations. But, being a part of the 
constitutive outfit of thought, and therefore dating 
prior to, or else contemporary with, its discursions, 
they are in no condition to antagonize its volitional 
determinations, but only provide a way for their 
advent and subsequent behavior. 

IV 

Here, now, are some impulses much more import- 
unate than simple states of either body or mind. 
Such are hunger, thirst, etc., — the true appeten- 



160 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

cies. Any exposition of such power as may be 
viewed as auxiliary to those of thought, would 
be strangely imperfect, if these most importunate 
motors were omitted. 

We have seen that thought is a watchful energy 
whose office it is to discover knowledge, and so 
have the advantage of its own role of action in the 
midst of other powers, — co-acting with, or else 
modifying them, for reasons of policy, choice, etc. 
Now, here are appetencies placed so near to thought 
that they are in, and of, us. For body and mind 
are mates from birth ; and because of this intimate 
union, we have a home acquaintance of mental and 
moral, physical and material, modes of being and 
action. 

Hence our sufficiency, from early childhood, for 
achieving informations and emotions which are 
ours, as the unit of body and spirit, and which fur- 
nish us with the voluntary impulsions which arise 
from, and express, the power of our knowledges. 

As thus furnished, there can be no doubt what 
we shall do when confronted with the appetencies. 
We hunger and thirst, etc., but not without 
the careful inquisition and cooperation of mind. 
They are seen to be unthinking and blind ; and 
whilst attesting this, their involuntary character, 
mind is contrasting itself as voluntary, with what 
is involuntary in them. And now, we may discern 
that the part played by all these involuntary impul- 
sions is that of a blind, incognitive stimulation, vital, 
animal, and even brutish, etc. And I may say of 
them, what I said of sensations, that whatever else 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 161 

they may do, they cannot usurp the peculium of 
thought, by making over to it the gift of a single 
rational idea, or information, of any kind. Thought 
remains stubbornly cognitive. 

For the office of the latter, in respect of these 
outside forces, is to determine what manner of 
things they are, to discover their outlying objec- 
tives, and to appraise their value for maturing re- 
fined (here personal) impulsions, or true desires. 
It will, and can, act only as it is informed ; and let 
an appetency be what it may, thought will have re- 
course to some exigent discursion, or perish. Where- 
fore if on a study of such native impulsions, mind 
should explicate rational impulsions, all we need 
say is that thought is facile princeps, an expert 
explorer, and has a right to such discoveries of 
its own as will give it a rational, and therefore 
personal, impulsion, be it emotion or desire. 

Such being my views, I must hold that, whilst 
hunger, thirst, etc., are placed outside of mind, as 
native forces, the mind, for its part, constructs 
ideas of them and their mission, and leads them 
out into the ways and opportunities of intelligent 
impulsions, through the sweeping metamorphosis 
of inference and judgment. 



Here I venture a passing remark. It will be 
observed that I have not spoken of these appeten- 
cies as entitled to the name of native desires or 
emotions. My reason is that neither the one nor 
the other is native to us, and I never meet with these 

M 



162 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

phrases without revolting at the inaccuracy. Ap- 
petencies are native to us, but desires and emotions 
are not. It is plain that one cannot desire, or be 
emotioned at any object, before he apprehends it. 
It is equally plain that there cannot be an object, 
for any appetency, until it is sought out and 
pointed out by mind. Only when thus discovered 
and mediated by mind can it ever be such an 
object. It is a better psychology which describes 
them as native appetencies, propensities, or predis- 
positions, acting as blind instigations. For we are 
but enouncing an immovable fact, when we affirm 
that they depend on some propaedeutic teachings of 
mind to reach even their most proximate objects of 
gratification, and yet it is a matter of much impor- 
tance to have a distinct conception of what they 
do in aid of mind. And this shall be our next 
problem. 

VI 

In man the vital or animal impulses are under 
the guardianship of a rational power which con- 
ceives human events and their gratifications. He 
has appetencies, or propensities, which vaguely and 
blindly foretoken the emotions and desires which 
come to birth upon a conception of our intelligent 
wants. Ever through life, he employs the dis- 
ciplinary stress and efficiency of some thought to 
curb or modify, or else assist or adapt, his animal 
impulsions. For whatever they are, and whatever 
they can do, he will, for his part, walk in the 
ways of thought. He is to them what the shcp- 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 163 

herd is to his sheep : " He putteth forth his own 
sheep . . . and the sheep follow him, for they know 
his voice." 

This is correct and beantiful. But wherefore 
does he put them forth ? Let us hope we can divine 
the reason ! It is because there is in the sheep that 
which provokes him to take them in charge, and 
minister to their blind cravings. But he could not 
do this, if he could not discern those blind cravings, 
and, discerning them, evolve and devise a way for 
their gratification. 

Now, this is literally the case as between man 
and the blind powers within him. He has to give 
them sight and lead them forth, providing for them 
the distinct opportunities revealed by his mighty 
discursive energy. 

But here we encounter a wish for fuller explana- 
tion. The situation is about this : A mere child may 
be at the mercy of blind impulsions; but, as he 
grows older, we see him doing for them after the 
manner of his maturer, human type of mind. So 
far we are secure. And yet there is in these blind 
impulsions something apart from what man can do 
with them. This also should be allowed for. We 
have already given these native impulsions the 
office of blind instigations to thought. But now, 
more precisely, what is their special office in respect 
of the essential competencies of thought, as a discov- 
erer of their functions ? Plainly, they are intended 
to orient the beginner with some dark intimations of 
the sequence between an animal impulse and its sat- 
isfying objects, and so lead him to ponder, and ulti- 



164 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

mately discover, their connection with his personal 
and responsible wants and voluntary impulsions. 

And this is the commencement of the distinctively 
discursive exploits of thought, and, as you see, due 
allowance has been made for the parts played both 
by voluntary and involuntary forces. 

I need scarcely mention the fact that this orienta- 
tion discovered in the appetencies is some aspect of 
divine thought seen in all His works, whether they 
be statics, dynamics, attributes, relations, or aught 
else, and seen there because of His law of rational 
order which appeals to our intelligence. 

VII 

But perhaps I should explain more explicitly 
what I mean by orienting the beginner. Well, we 
are thinking of a beginner who has to discover his 
facts by dint of careful scrutiny, and carry them 
forward into a field of transformations denied to 
impulsions strictly native and involuntary. 

Now for the orientation. I have just now named 
a feature in the appetencies which sets them apart 
from what we can do with them. They mean some- 
thing, and can do something significant. This, then, 
is their orientation, and it enables thought to remark 
upon, and know what to do with them and with 
itself, as now instructed by what it has discovered. 

And as to their meaning. Sensations, impulses, 
states of mind and body, etc., yea, everything in 
the universe of thought and matter, each has its 
allotted complement of meanings which one may 
inquire into and act upon. And so far as these 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 165 

meanings can be wrested from the objects studied, 
they amount to a very important orientation; sig- 
nificant, tangible, potent, fruitful. 

But, as man can neither create these potencies, 
nor fledge them with meaning, his task is to dis- 
cover that meaning, and pursue a line of conduct 
corresponding with the knowledge evoked. 

VIII 

I have been all along admitting that our native 
endowments and co-acting familiars of every kind, 
are an indispensable aid to our voluntary determina- 
tions. Now, so far as mind is thus dependent on 
them for aid, the question arises, does not this 
dependence imply some infringement of the pre- 
rogatives of a free or volitional power ? 

Here it is needful to remember that any freedom 
we may have (and that is all we contend for) is 
finite, and must, therefore, depend on such limita- 
tions as restrict it to the finite. We are finite, but 
it is a fact, equally well pronounced, that everything 
that acts on us is likewise finite ; even so finite that 
it cannot deliver a sensation, neither make any the 
least impression on us without our help, poor as it 
may be. As at present constituted, it is certainly 
something to help man, if only he have sense 
enough to help himself. 

The Omniscient has given him veracious stand- 
ards for his guidance in all this matter of potencies 
within and without, their help, orientation, etc.; 
and the more he studies them, the more he de- 
velops his several ability to command his own 



166 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

resources, and if so be lie help himself, is not that 
something to his credit ? 

We work a crop of corn, and the land in turn 
kindly helps us. So much for the help of a 
friendly power ! But does that oust us of the work 
we do ourselves ? We opine not. 

I pass on to another point closely allied to the 
above, but previously touched upon. Are not 
hunger and thirst, mental and physical states, etc., 
not to mention sensations, compulsory ? Dare we 
neglect them ? 

I concede, at once, that all these involuntary 
factors have a dynamic character so forcible that I 
cannot refuse them due attention. Indeed, they 
oftenest intrude upon my thought, not seldom vio- 
lently, and may destroy me at any moment. (But 
this latter is a question apart from the present 
exposition.) 

It may be observed however, that by as much as 
they are destroying me, they are destroying them- 
selves. "A house divided against itself cannot 
stand." 

Still, so long as I am not totally destined, my vol- 
untary efficiencies are not estopped. I have simply 
a very painful feature of the social dynamics of my 
co-acting familiars to take note of and act upon. 

However, if any normal visitation from these 
involuntary impulsions does but allow me an 
opportunity to exercise my own powers, it will be 
readily seen that, so far from being a serious infrac- 
tion of my freedom, it simply calls me to a different 
assertion of my discursive powers. 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 167 

If my freedom has been rudely assailed, it may 
be abridged, to that extent, but its repair, and pos- 
sible reestablishment, may still be accorded me. 

Apart from this, and under any ordinary circum- 
stances of health and surroundings, thought cannot 
be got to complain of any amount of so-called forc- 
ing on the part of involuntary factors, either to get 
it into position, or to maintain it there, as a free 
cause sufficient for its appointed tasks. 

Wherefore, from every point of view, we may 
regard thought as in charge of all these native 
forces, opening their eyes and adjusting their ori- 
entation to our dominant personal outlook, apprais- 
ing and then requiting their blind importunities. 
It has discovered the underlying sympathy between 
native impulsions and those which spring from 
mind and morals. It has ascertained that the 
former are an ordained support to the latter, in 
that they can be transformed into intelligent and 
personal motors. For, emerging as purely vital 
motors, they are transformed into the trained effi- 
ciencies of the governing intellect, and so become 
our familiar desires and emotions. The result is 
that, having once compassed the meaning and mis- 
sion of our appetencies, we begin to see some strong 
personal reasons for effecting that cognitive trans- 
formation which commutes what is an animal crav- 
ing into an emotion, or desire, for something we 
conceive to be promotive of our good. 

And here let me explain that, in every such trans- 
mutation, the interest manifested is to be seen in 
our desires and emotions, but this desire or emotion 



168 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

is, after all, nothing in the world but the personal 
or partisan interest seen in every achievement of 
thought. It is an element, or phase of, and born 
with, all knowledge. 

Moreover, this personal or partisan interest, this 
emotion or desire, is the actual substitute for the 
aforetime state of appetency seen in our native 
impulsions. Hence, when we have once for all 
acquired some knowledge, we can never commit the 
psychological inadvertency of losing an interest in 
it. For knowledge is personal power, as manifested 
in emotions and desires. But more of this anon. 

IX 

When one is told of instincts coming forward in 
aid of thought, he is at a loss what to say or think ; 
so little is known and so much is made of them. 
They are stifled under a ban which forbids their 
entering the current of thought. Still, I have an 
opinion under advisement. 

Of course every faculty of the soul has its first 
send-off spontaneously, ere yet the intelligence is 
born, and in order to its birth. But, onward from 
that time, we have to achieve all knowledge by a 
rational study of phenomena. And yet, there is 
sometimes an appearance of acting too quickly for 
any rational elaboration of the matter in hand. 
And this has some little show of support, when we 
are taken by a sharp surprise which may, in part, 
break up the rational processes. For, if these are 
quite broken up, the common catastrophe would 
overwhelm instinct and intellect alike. I confess 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 169 

to some sharp surprises myself, but I never once 
relapsed into a condition of mind which did not 
allow room for the play of, at least, a hasty con- 
sideration of the situation. I may be caught up so 
suddenly that the suddenness of the situation will 
awaken thought, and with it, the corresponding 
emotions of fear, alarm, surprise, etc. It is to be 
remembered that quite a large part of the life of 
thought consists in knowing things by a mere glance 
of recognition, — thought becoming an expert, after 
a varied experience of cognitive marks and their 
evidence. But surely this is not to know them 
without cognitive marks, as it would be in the case 
of a supposed instinctive apprehension. We have 
no instinctive, that is to say, unthinktive (?) knowl- 
edges (so to speak). The act of cognition may be 
quite as quick as that of the supposed instinct. 
But what is known is a thing of evidence and judg- 
ment ; an act of the thinking and judging soul. 

As was said, it was needful to begin life instinc- 
tively, or, I prefer saying, spontaneously, before ever 
we had been in a condition to turn the metamorphic 
power of thought upon the evidences for our acts, 
or upon the blind intimations seen in our native 
impulsions. But so soon as we become discursive, 
that swiftest recourse of reason (misnamed instinct) 
is born of oft-repeated thoughts and judgments, and 
has its place, for reasons of economy and dispatch, 
in our elaborating processes ; a ceaseless repetition 
of the more deliberate trains of reasoning, under 
all circumstances, ending in disastrous obstruction, 
as a little reflection will distinctly disclose. 



170 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

You remember the protracted, difficult, and tedi- 
ous processes the child resorted to in the effort to 
conceive the rose, the cherry, the nurse, the father, 
mother, and other domestic familiars, and how, 
having undergone this careful home-schooling, it 
set off to explore the universe, and perceived and 
conceived the horse, the landscape, cause and effect, 
law and order, and even God. But once completed, 
we may never repeat the same discursions, except 
under pressure of circumstances which will justify 
us. We abridge the toil of repeating the discursion. 

And now, that we have completed the details of 
conception, we may, and do, neglect them, and so 
behold the horse, the landscape, the rose, the cherry, 
etc., directly (J. say not instinctively), — that is to 
say, we perceive these objects in the mass. So that it 
comes to this : If, when looking at the horse, nurse, 
rose, etc. (after our previous elaboration of their 
content of attributes), we only perceive, that is, see 
them directly, it is because we keep all previous 
elaboration out of our eyes, or, at least, in the back- 
ground, and see them immediately. 

And in this sense, and for above reasons, we may 
be said to see even cause, law, order, and God, by a 
direct and immediate vision ; i.e., perceive them. 

At all events, we can reason fast or slow, to suit 
the occasion and the degree of mental culture 
reached, and still have no need to excogitate a re- 
crudescence like the so-called instinct of a child 
on the threshold of intelligence. And yet, some 
evolutionists can see nothing in all this manifesta- 
tion of mind but " nature," "natural selection," and 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 171 

even " reflex action," etc. ; and put it to selecting 
objects in advance of their presentation for selection, 
by way of solving a postulated mystery involved in 
accounting for the origin of new forms of life. 

X 

But, if it can be known that there is as little 
need for instinct in animals as in man, then it 
would be worse than absurd to contend for it at 
all. For, not many years agone, the text-books on 
comparative psychology assumed that animals acted 
on instinct alone. Nowadays, however, most phi- 
losophers recognize intelligence in many of their 
acts. Some later scientists, whilst holding that 
instinct is the dominating factor in animals, con- 
found it with " reflex action/' " automatism," etc., 
as stated above. As I find I cannot agree with 
either view, I propose to examine briefly some of 
the facts which disclose the nature and functions 
of the psychological activities on which these 
theories rest. 

I see no reason why animals should not have a 
power of mind to adjust themselves to their con- 
ditions by discursive methods, after the manner of 
man. 

I cannot delay upon any activity within the phy- 
sique which is reflex in character and, therefore, 
wholly beyond the mind's power to attemper, such 
as the circulation of the blood, etc. Physical crav- 
ings or appetites, propensities, etc., are common to 
animal and man, and shall not be enlarged upon. 

I may emphasize here, however, as bearing on 



172 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

what I shall urge later, that the physical activities 
of diverse organisms are as diverse in character as 
the organisms in which they act, and that they can 
make only snch appeals as will conform to the 
diverse intelligences addressed. 

Bearing the above statements in mind, it suggests 
itself that when we come to animals We are moot- 
ing questions of comparative physiological appeals 
addressed to intelligences differing among them- 
selves, and, from man, phylogenetically. 

And here, we have a general consensus of opin- 
ion that whatever mind animals and the higher 
insects may have, it must, like man's, rest on some 
sort of physical basis for its psychological trans- 
formations. But man and animal have different 
physiques, and they differ in type, much after the 
manner of a bear from an ox, or a bee from an 
ichthyosaurus. And this brings us, face to face, 
with those profound and ineffaceable distinctions 
which prescribe to each species of animals, and in 
a lesser degree, to each individual, a role of activity 
adapted to the play of its diversely circumscribed 
powers, mental and physical. For, as the phy- 
siques, say, of a fish and a humming-bird, differ 
so radically, their physical wants cannot be exactly 
the same, and so cannot make identical appeals to 
bird and fish alike. Given a peculiar physique, 
and you will have a peculiar class of appetites and 
propensities which determine its scale of being, and 
limit it to the pursuit of such objects, and to such 
alone, as will minister to its welfare. It cannot 
enter upon a career at war with its organism. 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 173 

Now, I take it that mind and brain, in animals, 
as in man, are co-acting and co-dependent factors; 
the one delivering such intra-cerebral excitations 
as the other can deal with cognitively ; the latter 
passing upon the meaning of what is delivered to 
it. In other words, mind and the organism must 
be in perfect accord. For, if not, then one or the 
other, or both, would be inadequate to the task set 
before it. For example, in order to perfect vision, 
we must have a perfect visual organ and a compe- 
tent perceptive power to confer with the objects 
presented. 

At this point, our facts disclose some important 
distinctions between man and animals which we 
cannot ignore. 

One consists in the latter' s apperceptions be- 
ing limited in range, whilst man's embrace the 
universe. 

Another takes its departure from the fact, now 
universally admitted, that many of the lower ani- 
mals and insects evince a capacity for clear and 
quick perception surpassing that of man, in sundry 
particulars. 

How do we account for this ? Nothing easier, 
say certain leading thinkers, who class them with 
instincts, or physical impulses, such as hunger, 
thirst, etc. But surely, no careful thinker can 
confound the surpassing intelligence of some ani- 
mals with the blind, physical impulsions of the 
organism, many, if not most of which, spring from 
local secretions which separate one class of animals 
from another, giving each a several nature. 



174 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

Still another class of thinkers propound the 
theory of heredity, with a bias for natural selec- 
tion, etc. Animals inherit aptitudes for special 
tasks, these men aver. And they adduce the fact 
that man can acquire great dexterity of mind and 
muscle, etc., and argue, thence, that animals and 
insects cannot only acquire singularly clear per- 
ceptions and aptitudes, but pass them over to their 
progeny, who have the fun of using them instinc- 
tively, much like little sucklings. Now, I can 
readily assent to the theory that animals, insects, 
etc., do acquire knowledge, precisely as man does ; 
and if they do, where is the need of explaining their 
acts by aggrandizing their dumb instincts, seeing 
that all your dexterity of muscle, etc., was acquired 
by the intellect and not by instinct ? The produc- 
tive efficiency is the intellect, and so, if we inherit 
anything, it must come of the ancestor who was 
productive of the thing inherited. But this whole 
thing of heredity is badly complicated by the doc- 
trine of reversion to (it may be) some stupid an- 
cestor who might impart a huge momentum of 
dulness, quite as infallibly as any one who acquired 
special dexterities of mind or body. For, in a 
question of this kind, who can tell whether the 
progeny has been fecundated from the graves 
of good men or of the bad ; from Jupiter Tonans 
or Juno ; from Solon or his mother ; from Socrates 
or Xanthippe ! And whose heart has not given 
place bo mingled feelings of aversion and piteous 
interest, on iirst coming to a knowledge of the many 
lorn and mutilated fragments of humanity persist- 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 175 

ently reappearing, generation after generation, in 
families whose lineage can be traced back through 
a long line of ancestors ? However, I agree that 
animals and man can pass over to their descendants 
any dexterity or habit acquired, but that is because 
the ancestor is an experienced teacher, and is at 
pains to impart what he knows to his progeny and 
familiars. And a habit thus acquired might well 
be mistaken for a so-called instinct. 

Still another and fatal objection to this theory 
is that, notwithstanding man has an immeasurable 
capacity for acquiring dexterity of mind and muscle, 
yet his posterity, even if he could pack it off to 
them by heredity, would be in no better condition 
to equal insects and animals in their special . con- 
ceptions and clearer cognitions, than the ancestor 
was himself. And it seems to me, therefore, that 
another theory, more in keeping with the facts, 
may be propounded ; and it may be precisely stated 
as follows: The astounding facility and clearness 
of perception displayed by these latter is backed 
by an intellectual endowment specially qualified for 
essaying the tasks allotted to them, but denied to 
man. 

Their level of capacity has been determined by the 
same law that determined that of man. Human 
intelligence which widens with the universe is not 
equal to the task of working up the materials which 
are local to, nor of discriminating and appropriating 
the food substances of, say, for instance, a fish in 
the bottom of the ocean. 

But the mind of a fish is definitely qualified and 



176 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

appointed for accomplishing that task. And there- 
fore the reason why the fish can do this, and man 
cannot, lies in the fact that the former has a phy- 
sique whose blind cravings can be sated only by an 
access of mental power, specially fitted to conceive 
and evalne his piscatorial wants. Whereas, on 
the other hand, man has no power of mind, so to 
identify himself with either the physique or mind 
of a fish as to appreciate the latter's cravings, adopt 
his habits, and struggle with his environment. 

A human intelligence alone can appease a human 
appetite, an animal only an animal appetite. And 
if so, why postulate an instinct for either ? 

It seems plain, then, that because animals and 
insects have unique organisms, they must also have 
unique wants, and if so, they must be ministered to 
by an intelligence uniquely qualified to provide for 
them. 

For their organisms are furnished with the pecul- 
iar secretions which provide for and specialize their 
appetites, cravings, etc. 

And therefore, may we say that even the envi- 
ronment, local to different beings, is, for the most 
part, that which is determined by the unique cast 
of their minds and physiques. For mind, every- 
where, is the dominant factor employed in selecting 
an environment the materials of which can be re- 
modelled to suit the physique with which it is 
mated; anything in the teachings of evolutionists 
to the contrary notwithstanding. 

The distinctive tasks appointed to the different 
classes of beings are determined by a God-given 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 177 

nature which enables them to select and make use 
of the powers of exterior nature, in the interest of 
wants discursively educed. 

And if this is so, it results, as necessarily as a 
consequence from a principle, that the sensations, 
impulses, etc., of animals must speak to them in a 
language with many thousand effective inflections 
utterly unknown to man's wider reach of vision. 

On the other hand, why should not animals have 
a gift of mind competent rapidly to classify and 
accelerate the perception of such objects as come 
within reach of their narrower range of vision ? 

It is to the physiological and psychological nature 
and conditions of a being, therefore, that we must 
look, if we would know the active principles which 
determine what he does. And here I may mention 
some peculiarities of structure in animals and 
insects which are designed to meet special needs 
arising from natures which differ from that of 
man. 

It is now ascertained that the use of compound 
eyes in some insects " enables them to enjoy dis- 
tinct vision during rapid flight." Whereas, in the 
case of a man going at such rapid speed, no distinct 
impression could be made of objects crossing his 
visual area. Here, as elsewhere, it is simply a ques- 
tion of comparative psychology and physiology; 
mind and physique co-acting in the performance of 
tasks prescribed by the law for their interdependent 
activities. And yet, within the field of performance 
allotted to each, it is not more unreasonable for 
animals to surpass man in celerity and clearness of 



178 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

perception, within their narrower horizon, than for 
man to surpass them in his world-wide construc- 
tive conceptions. 

I mention, here, some few concrete examples in 
support of these views, though the argument em- 
braces all creatures. Consider the bee and its wax, 
the spider and its thread, and the viscid and other 
secretions of many other insects, along with the 
special aptitudes acquired by each of the above. 
Now, it is readily apprehended that these creatures 
could not at all act upon a knowledge of these di- 
verse anatomical structures, so furnished, neither 
could they interpret their offices in respect of the 
physical and rational needs they shadow forth, if 
they were not part and parcel of an organism inti- 
mately connected with the diverse mental powers 
appointed to conceive and act upon their dissimilar 
intimations. And this is the rationale of all that 
keen, sharp, quick intelligence displayed by some 
animals and insects. They have a mind specially 
appointed and qualified for discerning and appre- 
ciating the unique animal impulsions, native to 
their diversely appointed physiques. 

XI 

And now, at the last moment before I close, I 
am led to make a further explanation : In remark- 
ing upon the resemblances and differences of the 
human and animal intelligence, I felt constrained 
to express a high opinion of the latter, holding 
that, within the pale of its nature and possibilities, 
an animal could reason as correctly and clearly as 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 179 

man. protesting, nevertheless, that the similarity of 
their mental powers and sensorial data furnished 
no evidence that an animal was furnished with a 
sweep of mental vision, and power of elaboration of 
data, equal to that of man. On the contrary, I 
hold that to each is given a power of mind adapted 
to construct his own world of egoism and personal 
satisfactions, in precise conformity to his several 
ability to appreciate the significance of the things 
which can be made to contribute to his welfare. 
And this remits the one, as well as the other, to a 
nature and destiny whose barriers neither can sur- 
mount. 

Each can reason and act upon reasons, within the 
confines prescribed by his nature and confronting 
environment, because to each is appointed a meas- 
ure of mental power suited to his nature and envi- 
ronment. And therefore, as thus constituted and 
conditioned, an animal can frame and put to a de- 
terminate use a certain kind and number of concep- 
tions that will appease a certain kind and number 
of wants, peculiar to an animal and denied to man. 
A definite physique and mind, definitely correlated 
for a conjoint work, is the measure and promise of 
all man, or animal, can do ; and as thus empowered 
and restricted, each is left free to seek his indi- 
vidual wants. 

As illustrating these views, I recall an incident 
or two which transpired when we were children, 
and which may serve to place my contention in 
clearer outline before the reader. In those halcyon 
days, we companioned with an intelligent cur that 



180 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

had discovered a habit of running away from the 
hares in a direct line to their holes in the ground, 
and from that position running them down at his 
pleasure. As a matter of course, in the dawn of 
childhood, we, his companions, were more than de- 
lighted with such wonderful feats. But we were 
destined to see more of the surprising and surpass- 
ing power of mind in our poor dumb favorite. 

For, once upon a time, he kept up a prolonged 
and deep-mouthed barking the major part of a 
summer's day, away down in the bottom lands, 
about a mile from our house. The evening twilight 
was approaching, when a half-dozen of us little 
children, our hearts flushed with rosiest anticipa- 
tions, toddled down to where he still kept up his 
fierce barking. To us, in our infantile innocence 
and inexperience, it was an outing of eager inter- 
est and wonderment, which the rude touch of time, 
and a wider experience, had not yet robbed of its 
awful significance. The dog had unearthed a den 
of foxes, nestled at the end of a hole excavated far 
within the soft ground, and was busy destroying 
the whelps, — a feat which he accomplished soon 
after our arrival there ! And so it happened that, 
just at this time, the old mother fox hove in sight 
of this scene of slaughter, and the dog espying 
her, we were made spectators to the philosophy of 
a race for life or death. 

I need not say that we were wildly excited. The 
fox made for a precipitous cliff on the bank of the 
little river along which she ran, and about a mile 
from where we stood. The dog, for his part, was 



POWEKS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 181 

familiar with, the approaches to the cliff, and its 
crumpled folds and fissures, — the safe refuge for 
all the foxes for miles around. I should have said 
that the river here describes a complete semicircle 
between where we were standing and the afore- 
mentioned cliff. As I said, the fox ran along the 
river, and, of course, with the semicircle, so that, in 
case she were hotly pursued, she could take advan- 
tage of the undergrowth that fringed its border. 
So much for the fox. And now, you may imagine 
the amazement of, at least, one of the little children 
when he saw that his aforetime sagacious cur would 
not run after the fox at ally indeed, would not so 
much as deign to look at her, but kept heading for- 
ward along an inner line pointing directly to the 
cliff, and four or five hundred yards off to one side 
of the fox. Off to one side of, and not looking 
toward her ! And we poor, little innocents were 
sore confounded and mystified for many a weary 
day — for, to us, it seemed passing strange that our 
once conspicuously intelligent dog should now run 
so witlessly off to one side of the fox ! But then, as 
we afterward learned, the dog made his point and 
captured the fox ; and this reassured us somewhat. 
And now, after the lapse of more than sixty 
years, it seems abundantly plain that both dog and 
fox alike had been doing some remarkably clear 
thinking, evincing consummate judgment, and prac- 
tical insight in mastering the details of a problem 
involving the issues of life and death. And in all 
this, they were the equals of any man. The dog, 
in particular, must have reasoned from his mul- 



182 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

tiform experiences of the behavior of hares and 
foxes to the particular case of the fox and the foot 
race. But he could not have done this without 
resorting to some process of rational elaboration 
which would call for the exercise of the resources 
of comparison, discriminating judgment, and infer- 
ence from facts, — solving thus the difficult prob- 
lems which grow out of a present and pressing 
emergency by a grand induction from former expe- 
riences to the case in hand. It is to be understood, 
however, that this range of mental vision and elab- 
oration found in animals never extends much be- 
yond these and similar experiences. For both dog 
and fox equally are at touch with a physical and 
mental nature which restricts them to conceptions 
framed in conformity to their definitely appointed 
animal possibilities, and to nothing beyond. 

For instance, to compare them with the toddling 
infants who witnessed their race in the field, 
neither of them could conceive, much less build, 
a house in the sand, with, say, chimneys, doors, 
rooms, windows, etc., not to mention simdry other, 
little toilette appointments, constructed of chips 
and sticks, cobs, sods, rocks, mosses, and what not 
— such as the just mentioned children, heirs to 
larger conceptive visions, not seldom conceive and 
build, and, mayhap, on that very day did conceive 
and build. For, the inferences and deductions 
upon which a human being acts, though, as a mat- 
ter of course, limited by his human nature, embrace 
the bolder flights of constructive vision which 
Inform and empower a human soul. 



POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 183 

We conclude, therefore, that the nature of any 
creature determines the character, and limits the 
scope, of his intellections, even the individual point 
of view he will take when attacking the problems 
of life and personal well-being. 

But, if you want to put all thought of a correct 
psychology to grief, only keep up this dusky 
prattle about animals, and even man, acting on 
"instinct," "reflex action," etc., so much affected, 
nowadays, by some leading scientists. An animal, 
for example, simply takes an animal view of him- 
self and surroundings, and he is just as competent 
to reason from his nature and surroundings to his 
peculiar needs as man, from his nature and sur- 
roundings, to his peculiar needs. Let us have man 
or animal to discover all he can discover of the 
significance of things, inner and outer, and connect 
all he can discover of them with the personal, in- 
dividual, and social requirements indicated by his 
nature and surroundings. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Thought and Exterior Powers Contrasted 

Things exterior do impress mind, but is the 
latter on that account only receptive of the impres- 
sion, only subjective in their presence? Might not 
thought, for its part, be as active, aggressive, and 
discrete in its own way and by virtue of its own 
resources as any exterior power? 



Observe that the appeal is to mind, and not to 
anything exterior, for an opinion. And if this is 
so, it seems clear that the former is already in court 
with an antecedent claim that everything in the 
universe is bound to respect. For, as Hamilton 
expresses it : If we know everything through 
mind, we must know mind beyond doubt, for the 
paramount reason that we know all else through it. 

Now, if thought is thus admittedly such a pre- 
potent affirmative energy, I might retort on the 
extreme school of sensationists, by disallowing 
the claims of sensations altogether. For, look at 
the argument! All I know of mind is a subjec- 
tivity seen in my thought and inferences. So, 
too, all I know of external nature is this same 
subjectivity, seen as above. Moreover, though I 
181 



THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS 185 

am a unit of body and mind, all I know, and can 
know, of either is the same subjectivity, seen also 
as above. Am I therefore an idealist? By no 
means ! I am no more an idealist than a materi- 
alist. Thought gives me both, and the one is as 
solidly and defiantly accredited as the other. 
Still, if either has place in thought as a something 
affirmed and accredited, it is there on the sole 
testimony of the cognitive energy which decisively 
avouches a knowledge of it. 

Admitting then the presence and power of sensa- 
tions as unquestionable, what I would contend for 
is that mind is not a mere receptive blank, capable 
of only witnessing for what is delivered to it by 
means of sensorial impressions. It has rational 
potencies for achieving knowledges, with which, 
in an act of cognition, every exterior potency 
has to be brought into sympathetic and helpful 
cooperation. 

It speaks the word of authority without which 
the very being and possibilities of a sensation could 
never be called forth. It is a cognitive power, and 
so much so that it cannot even receive a sensorial 
impression without affirming it by an act of percep- 
tion or conception. It has a boundless curiosity, 
to begin with, and its very life depends on what it 
can discover of, and do with, the things of self 
and not self. It lives on the power of the ideas 
it acquires. And this capacity for thought and 
deed, this intellectual power and performance, is so 
intrepid that we can scarcely imagine a momen- 
tary interval in which we have nothing to do, 



186 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

without our having, in the selfsame instant, a 
multitude of things to be done staring us in the 
face and calling for attention; the intelligence is 
so promptly and punctually active and aggressive. 

Indeed, we cannot take the most indifferent and 
cursory glance at anything without immediately 
framing some opinion of its value, as a discovery 
conceived to be related, in some way, to our inter- 
ests. And, in all such cases, we advance as we 
perceive and conceive. Observe a child taking an 
interest in its childish affairs. Its every thought 
is in the direction of its welfare, as an individual 
power diverse from all others, say, to feel its mus- 
cular powers; to put some first, faint estimate on 
the kind attentions of a mother, nurse, etc., to 
recognize her presence as the frequent source of 
its happiness, — it may be, as a great outside per- 
S071, or alter ego, caring for its whims, wants, or 
hurts. And here, beyond doubt, we have a per- 
sonal power, at one and the same moment affirming 
and contrasting itself with things and potencies 
not itself. 

Thought, then, is a distinct entity which founds 
on its discursive resources for acquiring power and 
action of its own. But if sensations give it ideas, 
then we have informations without the rational 
scrutiny needed to fetch them. We have not found 
truth, but it has found us. And if this is so, it 
is imposed on us, and we are not free. 

However, let us examine this point carefully. 
We hold to the fundamental postulate that nothing 
is known except through the active intervention 



* THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS 187 

of mind. From earliest infancy onward, this our 
thinking equipment has to discover and affirm 
every fact for our guidance, noting intently the 
very first coming of sensations, and so entering 
upon a broader plane of exploration and discovery. 
The mind takes cognitive interest in these sen- 
sorial impressions, and straightway proceeds to 
form a more intimate acquaintance with entities 
and activities exterior to itself, acquiring power 
to act in accordance with what it affirms of them 
and their mission. 

Indeed, it is incumbent on us to know things not 
ourselves ; affirming and appreciating their content 
of attributes, actions, and relations, lest otherwise 
we be at their mercy. It is to be observed that we 
are not claiming for thought the position of an 
isolated or independent entity. It is surrounded 
with a universe of other entities which it essays to 
know, and must know as entities coupled in some 
way with its welfare; must commune with these 
as things of meaning, each having a special signifi- 
cance imparted to it by Him who gave them place 
to sport their powers hereabouts, and must make 
all it can learn of them so entirely its own that it 
can employ what it learns of them, as a personal 
power promotive of its own good. 

It is to be remarked that I make due allowance 
for the extra-mental potencies which act on, or with, 
our thought, endeavoring to point out their relation 
to the volitional and personal factors which call out 
our educated, or personal, traits and wants. For 
the reader should now understand that, whenever 



188 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

we have the rational impulsions called desires, they 
act as our personal motors or powers and so act 
because called forth by the rational and construc- 
tive appreciations that beget personal considera- 
tions and a personal outlook. 

II 

Knowledge is not made over to us by any power 
different from an ordinary discursion. We have 
to acquire it as best we can. We have to discover 
our rational humanities, and so be moved to act 
from rational considerations and trained impul- 
sions. There is a close brotherhood of mental and 
physical forces in man. They are roofed together 
from childhood, and constitute an original, or au- 
tochthonous, brood co-acting in furtherance of a 
conjoint work. Some contribute to the animal 
economy, such as sensations, physical cravings, 
appetites, etc. But all these blind physical factors 
occupy sheltered retreats, speechless and sightless, 
until they are made to disclose their mission by 
the party that intermeddles with wisdom. 

Quite on the confines of this close brotherhood is 
that vast horde of physical and material entities 
— our outdoor neighbors — who people the immen- 
sities of time and space with the mind of God. It 
were well that these physical, vital, and remoter 
parties should make a call upon the thoughtful 
party. And they are now, face to face, in actual 
contact, and exchanging civilities. 

Now, what is the effect of this exterior visi- 
tation? Simply a notification of business of 



THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS 189 

importance to both parties, the exterior parties 
proclaiming in effect: "Try and forget it. We 
have our rude way of coming into your presence. 
Do not be the least disturbed. ]STo harm meant. 
We are commissioned to furnish you with a speci- 
men of our peculiar dynamics. Here are some 
sensorial impressions to your hand in the sen- 
sorium for your thoughtful appreciation. We 
are but pursuing the letter of the enabling act 
which prescribes and limits our functions, — even 
as it does yours. And we are doing our part to 
promote the social intercourse, if not welfare, of 
both. We cannot act anti-socially, even if we 
would. It is neither our fault nor yours, if this 
our social compact and intercourse should entail 
some grave responsibilities and rough experiences 
upon our intelligent brother. Sufficient for all 
that is the Omniscient. We have fulfilled our 
mission. We trust we have not been offensively 
intrusive. Business is business. Still, may we 
not look for you to give us, in turn, a touch of 
your friendly regards? We leave you to your 
reflections. Good morning to you ! " 

III 

The order of treatment of such a vast subject 
leads me to speak of another aspect of our problem. 
I am referring to efforts made to confound the 
contents of our sensations with thought, feeling 
(emotion), and volition, etc. Tor we are informed 
that these latter are simply complexes of sensa- 
tions, that is to say, of elements, each essentially 



190 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

similar to blue, hot, cold, sour, etc. This we deny 
in toto. 

I had thought that I had said enough to give 
thought and sensations their proper places in the 
scheme of interaction devised for the diverse fac- 
tors concerned. But here is perhaps the proper 
place to define more precisely this very matter of 
the power and interdependence of the two. 

Every sensation, so this doctrine runs, has a 
quality and intensity which represent the nature 
and strength of the stimulus which determines the 
thought, emotion, etc., of the thinker. And this, 
we are told, is a deliverance of science, which is 
incontrovertible and final. But how much truer 
to science, and sensations as well, it would be, if, 
whilst allowing for all a sensation can do, science 
would allow for all thought can do? 

I am under constraint to my practicable limits, 
proposing to place before my reader only a few of 
the controlling facts quietly ignored by the scientist. 

I grant the power, stress, and tone of sensations. 
Thought does not propose to interfere, indeed has 
no need to interfere, with the nature and powers 
of things, external or internal. What I contend 
for is that this can never explain a state of mind 
which has an appointed outfit of resources of its 
own, for dealing with sensations and their tone. 
Finite thought and sensation must hang together, 
as contrasted but co-active factors, let the stress 
and tone of either be what they may. But that 
any normal peculiarity of sensation should antago- 
nize the distinctive efficiencies of thought, or that 



THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS 191 

of thought, those of sensation, is to the last degree 
unpsy etiological and false. I have, all along, con- 
tended that sensation has power, and quality of 
power, sufficient to impress thought with, its pe- 
culiar dynamics, arresting its attention, and so 
opening a way for the assertion of its cognitive 
transformations. And this is but a pre-arrange- 
ment of the Creator for establishing and conserv- 
ing the interaction and co-action of the diverse 
factors concerned. 

But, says an objector, what becomes of the tone 
and temper, dominant stress, etc., of a sensation? 
Well, I shall now attend to that point too. And 
I would propose to my objectors simply to let both 
thought and sensation have a tone and temper of 
their own, undisturbed and undisputed, and so 
preserve both, intact. Let the sensorial efficien- 
cies deliver an impression in the sensorium, and 
let thought do its own thinking, and the tone and 
temper of both will be preserved. I am intently 
regarding the sensation and its tone as seen in the 
sensorium and nowhere else, and inquiring how 
that tone is there set up and what sets it up. 

And I affirm that the tone and stress of sensation 
is as much set up genetically by mind as by the 
exterior potency. It takes both to set them up. 
For whatever they may be in anything placed out- 
side of the mind's cooperative efficiencies, the tone 
and stress found in a sensation (and that is the 
only evidence we have for them) depend as much 
on mind for being and action as upon the sensorial 
impression made in the brain. And if they step 



192 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

forth as distinguishable elements of a sensation, 
they will have to undergo some careful manipula- 
tion at the hands of thought. 

I deny to mind the least power to fledge exterior 
things with either tone or pressure proper to their 
nature. And I am as emphatic in denying to these 
latter the least power to fledge mind with any tone 
or pressure proper to its several nature. The inhi- 
bition applies to both. But conceding the tone 
and pressure of things exterior to be what it may, 
mind can lay claim to the diverse, but correlative, 
power of reacting upon that tone and pressure with 
a cognitive tone and pressure peculiar to itself, and 
estranged from any external power. It has a life 
and growth of its own furnished with intellectual 
peculiarities of its own, and goes out to try con- 
clusions with exterior impressions, and so make 
conquest of their mode and manner of being, 
gathering power and building up its counter-activi- 
ties, as it captures idea after idea from the static 
and dynamic naturalism of things exterior. For, 
with every idea captured, is born a personal, that 
is to say, an emotional or desiderative vehemence, 
which is consummated in conduct or acts held in 
conscious contrast with exterior powers and trans- 
formations. For we are now in the power of our 
thoughts, and can make our points as we think. 



Part IV 

PERSONAL AND VOLUNTARY POWER 
OF INFORMATIONS 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Desires and Emotions 

In other connections I have maintained the 
thesis that knowledge is ours by right of discovery, 
and that, being ours, its power is also ours, for our 
guidance and governance. The same view obtains 
in the treatment of desires and emotions. For 
these are nothing but the stress of our informa- 
tions manifested as personal or voluntary power 
in the realm of conduct. And this view is the 
keystone in the arch of free determinations. 



Let us carefully consider the problem. We 
transport us to the time, when we are inspired by 
the aims and purposes that express our desires 
and emotions. At this period, we are permitted 
to think that we have measurably completed the 
discoveries and distinctions which inform and 
educe our rational wants. 

And, here, it is important to remark that the 
birth of our rational wants is the birth of personal 
or voluntary powers. This seems evident. But, 
for the moment, let us inquire what is the fortune 
and function of the desires and emotions which we 
may not now embrace? Eor we see them tempora- 
195 



196 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

rily replaced by others which emphasize our pres- 
ent or prevailing views. And yet they continue 
along with us, as psychological possessions, reap- 
pearing, it may be, on a sudden, as a provisional 
instigation to conduct, and though we may repulse 
their demands, we cannot repress their importu- 
nities. 

If this be so, then we may be prompted to act 
from two sets of desires, one active, the other 
potential. The former may be likened to a man- 
of-war steering in the face of the gales. The latter 
is more like a league of gunboats attached to the 
command, and subject to the orders, of the admiral. 

"What, then, is the office of these floating desires? 
We have seen that our native appetencies possess 
the trait of an original orientation for mind. But 
our floating desires possess that of an acquired 
orientation for conduct. For they are trained, and, 
therefore, personal motors, and show the influence 
of a careful teacher. 

But if trained, then they are not to be classed 
with native potencies. And yet, as their orienta- 
tion was determined by some prior thought, their 
impulsion must set in before a present one, after 
the manner of a native appetency. Nevertheless, 
as their intimations are traceable solely to some 
foregoing thought, they are to be regarded as our 
own, i.e., personal and voluntary impulsions. And 
so, when they emerge as a present spur to conduct, 
they occupy the border ground which shades off 
into both past and present. 

They can, therefore, make a strong personal 



DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 197 

appeal to the authority of reason. If, however, 
on due consideration, they should antagonize our 
present views, we may dismiss their appeal. Still, 
they are a fairly correct and forcible demarkation 
for conduct, exhibiting a diversity of character and 
vehemence whose every feature reveals some trace 
of previous thought. 

II 

Eeverting now to a former illustration, I may 
remark that man's position, touching these afore- 
time trained impulsions, or floating desires, is not 
exactly that of the shepherd to the fold, seeing 
that they were called forth by his voluntary pro- 
curement, and that he controls them as his own 
voluntary efficiencies. Hence, their power over 
conduct is not a question between him and another 
something, but between him and his own some- 
thing. Stated otherwise, it is not between him 
and what is not his, but between him and what 
is his. 

Ill 

I turn now to the subject of active desires medi- 
ated in the present. I explain by remarking that 
we have an original capacity for acquiring such 
desires and emotions as depend on the ability 
to discover their satisfying objects. For every 
rational satisfaction is an object of desire solely 
through the mind's power of conception and elabo- 
ration. Knowing an object, once for all, we must 
also know why we should desire it; our intelligence 
ever going before, to witness for our desires. 



198 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

Indeed, if any sane mind, turned twenty, can 
entertain rudimental impulses unchallenged of 
thought, it is because nothing of superior dignity 
can impress it. 

One securely rational imports his own desires 
from his own substance (here actively thought- 
ful and voluntary), and puts his own substance 
(explained as above) into whatever affects conduct, 
be it regarded as information, emotion, desire, or 
what not. 

And, therefore, I affirm that our freedom is won 
by a carefully intelligent sifting and testing in 
manifold ways of that which we conceive will 
contribute something desirable, or otherwise unde- 
sirable, enabling us to choose the one, and discard 
the other. For the conceit of mind is everywhere 
trying conclusions in respect of what we should 
desire, and we put our best thought into what we 
are pondering, and incline to it, or not, by an act 
of judgment affirming choice or ultimate desire. 

Reflect a moment. Make me altogether human, 
but endowed with the brutish proclivities of a 
beast : How could I perceive, much less prize and 
prefer, the qualities of human excellence, to be 
desiring them? We must have a human soul and 
its broader sweep of vision: That is to say, we 
must have the power of human ideas or informa- 
tions, to give us the psychological competency for 
appreciating what can placate or repel a human 
being; for we must act upon informations which 
shut us up to final choice as completed desire. 

Every fact of experience attests this. Here is a 



DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 199 

class of emotions which spring from the contempla- 
tion of objects of beauty, or else the sublime and 
wonderful. In the presence of such objects, who 
is not either thrilled with ecstasy, or subdued into 
awe? But why? It is all in the quality and 
qualifications of mind. A dog would speed by the 
pyramids of Egypt, as heedless of their majestic 
significance as of the sorriest protoplasmic dust 
beneath his feet. He hies on, outspeeding the 
award of even a passing glance. But then, he 
has no mind for either protoplasmic or pyramidal 
grandeurs. That is all! Intellectual, or moral, 
or aesthetic sense in an empty pate is a nonentity 
that can by no means be baited into being. 

But man's mental competency is ceaselessly gen- 
dering the emotions and desires which crown him 
lord of the humanities. We must appreciate the 
aesthetic significance of such objects, ere we are 
permitted to feel the characteristic emotions. And, 
in order to this, we shall have to cultivate a class 
of refined conceptions whose presence alone can 
inspire the appropriate emotions and desires. 

It will behoove us, therefore, to see our way out 
to the objects specially appointed to inspire us with 
such desires and emotions as our human intelli- 
gence can elicit and sanction, imparting to them 
the life-giving force of our conceptions. For they 
can never become factors for conduct, save as they 
are inspired by and walk with our thought. 

Emotions and desires must have power, but then, 
they must energize as we think, carrying out in all 
literalness the force of our thoughts, as I wish to 



200 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

make evident, later on. Even now as I write, I 
can almost visualize some object divinely fair and 
bright. Suppose though, that this reconstructive 
power of the imagination is lost to me. How could 
I, then, have either emotion or desire for the object? 
It seems plain, therefore, that some mental or moral 
power must be resorted to, in order to my having a 
reason for my interest in the object desired. 

It is absolutely impossible for any human mind 
to desire at the bidding of a blind impulse. In the 
strictest psychological sense, therefore, the self 
determines conduct by making choice, or effectu- 
ating some final desire ; the choice or final desire 
simply expressing, or emphasizing, our personal 
preference or prevailing reason or opinion. Desire 
is a reason personally attempered. We desire only 
as we think. 

IV 

One may contend, however, that as many of our 
desires are implicated with our native cravings and 
propensities, they prompt, and in prompting affect, 
conduct, in spite of the power of thought. This 
misconception has been freshly gone upon in former 
pages, but as it turns up here, we may remark upon 
it in passing. 

I have explained the function of thought as the 
genetic source of emotions and desires in contrast 
with all these involuntary forces, and shall not 
therefore go into all that problem here. 

But I may be allowed to remark, further, that if 
one should not become deeply moved, or else sup- 



DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 201 

ported by some form of emotion or desire when 
contemplating the curious and persistent strivings 
of his blind, animal impulses, he could never take 
an interest in their study sufficient to put him on 
the track of their rational explanation. As it is, 
he remarks and ponders their significance, and so 
is moved to discover all knowledge which will pre- 
pare him for leading them forth in the ways of 
thought. 

The truth is, as heretofore explained, we start 
with a stock of native propensities which, as native, 
are sheerly animal and blind impulsions, emerging 
outside of thought, as irrational and involuntary in- 
stigations providing for its advent. And they have 
no other function. And here I beg to repeat that 
that which is in a state of natural priority to what 
we can intelligently desire is in no position to take 
in hand the peculiar tasks of thought, — these being 
subsequent, cognitive, and, therefore, personal 
achievements of the awakened intelligence. For 
thought must have command of its own resources, 
ere it can have a reason for acting, springing from 
a view of what it can personally desire or prefer. 
And when it has command of these, it moves on a 
plane of personal responsibility for its every desire. 
And thenceforth, it will have its own desire, in its 
own way of thinking, or none at all. Otherwise, 
it would lack power to mediate its own impulsions, 
and couple them with aims and objects rationally 
affirmed and sanctioned. 

But granting, now, that these blind impulses do 
blindly prompt to action, let me ask, How can that 



202 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

antagonize thought in the slightest degree? The 
fact is indisputable that there can never be any 
prompting by any impulse independent of our 
seeing something in an object which prompts the 
desire, or moves us to desire it. And mind alone 
can do that. 

Now, who or what does this seeing or thinking; 
who affirms the object desired, if not the responsible 
actor, man? So then, if this be so, the real prompt- 
ing is done by a desire mediated by the power of 
thought. For all desire comes of, and is born 
with, some thought, and so is really but an 
expression of its personal force or power. 

It is evident, therefore, that a mere blind impulse 
fails to account for man's acts. He is not quite 
rawer than the rawest specimen of an animal. He 
reasons and acts with his reasons, as indeed he acts 
them, whenever he makes choice or fulfils desire, 
for fulfilling a desire is, and can be, nothing but 
actualizing choice or preference, ultimating the 
personal power of some thought. 

From all which, it is evident that the elaborating 
and constructive efficiencies of mind give us volun- 
tary, not necessary, actions; intelligent desires, 
not blind promptings; even ultimate desires, and 
personal power and responsibility. And the general 
conclusion reached is that whatever man does is 
done in accordance with his rational convictions, 
and that, whenever he acts from reason, he may 
have both desires and their objective satisfactions, 
as he reasons, and because of his reasons. 

And this means, further, that we may put a term 



DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 203 

to any floating desires that we might go upon in 
the unguarded moments of sinful solicitations. 
For we are free, moral agents only when we can 
make some choice final, in the light of a judicious 
view of our personal responsibility. I may there- 
fore lay down the two following propositions as 
incontrovertible : — 

1. Man discovers what to choose or desire, 
training his mind to a knowledge and appreciation 
of such objects, and such satisfactions, as he can 
prefer, or choose, or desire; employing thus the 
energy found in some intelligent appreciation of 
the object desired ; that is to say, desire must lean 
upon thought, — here opinion or information of 
some kind, — in order that it maybe responsible 
as choice. 

2. Man must know what to choose, as a re- 
sponsible person walking in the light of educated 
or voluntary impulsions ; and so he walks by the 
power of the thoughts which beget the desires for 
which he is responsible. 

The following illustration may serve to support 
my contention. I am beholding a rainbow with 
emotions of wilder ing pleasure. Whence come all 
these fervid emotions? They are unquestionably 
mine, if not by former experience and personal 
espousal, at least by present, intelligent, propae- 
deutic elaboration. The assertion may seem bold, 
but they cannot be rightly described as prompting 
me at all, — they are so intimately my own. Every 
effort of thought, past or present, has contributed 
its quota of personal power to give me the joy of 



204 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

such a resplendent display of prismatic colors. 
And now that I am possessed of the corresponding 
emotions, it is not impertinent to repeat that it 
would not be strictly correct to say : It is a question 
between me and my emotions. Nay, rather, it is 
I myself, with the susceptibilities I have fostered, 
taking pleasure in an object brought before my 
thought, to the extent of my capacity for affirming 
such elements of the beautiful stored in nature. 
For the gospel of such a glad revelation of nature 
can never be enjoyed in the absence of mind to 
appreciate the revelation. 

Now will any one dare say that these and kin- 
dred emotions, or desires, are the promptings of 
that which acts without the intervention of my 
intelligence and vivid appreciations? Have not 
the desires which prompt me been made mine by a 
whole life of achievement in the domain of mind, 
morals, and aesthetics? I am moved toward what 
I desire by a power of thought and its careful dis- 
tinctions, and I enter upon choice or ultimate desire 
with the eyes of my judgment opened upon the 
object, and I enter upon what I do by projecting 
this very thought into the thing to be done. 

Yes, pleasing were those emotions of the beauti- 
ful, and taught of all the humanities of thought to 
rejoice in its ways and do them. 



I am still debating the ability of a responsible 

creature to conceive reasons which move him to act. 

Let me vary the mode of inquiry somewhat. The 



DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 205 

finger responds with but little previous training to 
the stimulus of thought. On the other hand, the 
moral factor has to be sedulously and continually 
trained to act with foresight of consequences, ere 
it can entertain, much less finally act upon, its 
peculiar stimuli. 

The office of the finger is denoted by its obvious 
structure, and so the analogy between it and the 
moral factor might seem to be imperfect. But if 
we could teach the finger to discharge some nobler 
function determined by the exigencies of a higher 
life to be entered upon when properly instructed, 
such as that of intellectual power and personal 
responsibility, we might bring home to our con- 
ception an instance of intense and vivid training 
parallel to that of our own voluntary experience. 
Now it is just here, and in this connection, that I 
am led to observe that the desire centre, when 
trained, responds as promptly to the authority of 
reason as does the finger. The power of thought 
begets a desire as promptly as it can release and 
control the blind forces shut up in the finger. 

Permit me to explain further. Let us imagine 
that we are now in possession of much that reason 
affirms to be desirable; objects for which we may 
strive. For we have affirmed their points of attrac- 
tion and struggle for their possession. Now, all 
this is in the line of our voluntary powers, or per- 
sonal and responsible achievements. And, there- 
fore, it has not been our fortune, so far, to detect 
any element of necessity in any promptings of the 
emotions or desires involved. 



206 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

But after all, do they not often make a very 
urgent appeal to reason? Yes, very often. And 
so here may be our chance to trump up necessity. 
I call for the appeal. A presbyterial overture goes 
before the synod. The overturists either suggest 
some action, or ask for instructions. The synod 
may, if it chooses, act with the suggestion, or it may 
lay down a rule of conduct for the inferior court. 
As it is a petition for advice or a rule of action, 
it acts finally, and that settles the case for the 
overturists. 

Now suppose we take the appeals of our floating 
desires to be distinctly separable from any power 
of thought or morals to give them their wonted 
efficiency — though this supposition is contrary to 
fact! Even then, the fact of their making an 
appeal to reason is a confession of subordination. 
And now, when they obey the latter 's behests, they 
stand in an attitude analogous to one of our physi- 
cal members moving at the command of thought. 

But now, let us suppose that we have long since 
made the desires we have on hand to be our own, 
and this, whether our success in their elicitation 
and cultivation could be commended or not. What 
would, then, be the character of their appeals? 
Evidently, our own, be they good or bad. But, if 
our own, and elicited by our own efforts, where 
would be the taint of necessity? 

Any impulsion thus made our own (and for any 
reason) is, and can be, nothing but a personal and 
voluntary vehemence which bespeaks our thought, 
coming into being and taking orders, as it does, 



DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 207 

from the power that mediates every possible emo- 
tion or desire — even what should and what should 
not, be desired. For the good or bad of what is 
ours has been pondered and felt from aforetime in 
the forum of reason, and we have to act on any, 
the last instigation, proceeding from the last phase 
of our desires, as we did on any previous one ; we 
choose or reject it at our peril. 

And I contend that this dependence of all our 
emotional or desiderative impulsions is so all- 
embracing and thoroughgoing that, at any time 
we would do something, there is not one single 
emotion or desire which is not conditioned by some 
power of mind, for any force it may have, when 
rising into consciousness. For here is concentrated 
all the antecedent experiences of the soul, embrac- 
ing the unbroken continuity of the whole series, 
such as every new thought and its power, even emo- 
tions and desires keeping step with the thoughts 
that inspired them. 

So much for the power of thought and its insep- 
arable train of emotions and desires. 

VI 

It seems plain, therefore, that neither appeten- 
cies, nor floating desires, nor for that matter any 
force, exterior or not, can trench upon the preroga- 
tives of thought, choice, or voluntary determina- 
tion. They are all bound by the enabling clause 
of the fundamental law which prescribes and limits 
their functions, just as the man, as a whole, is 
similarly limited and bound. 



208 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

He, too, has to submit to a law for his finite 
powers. He cannot alter the nature of any of his 
members, say again, a finger. He can, indeed, 
command a power which will move it. And, if it 
move, it is because, say, of his desire to move it. 
The bones, muscles, and jointed, prehensile struct- 
ure, etc., are furnished by Another, and he, for 
his part, can neither annihilate these furnished 
materials, nor vacate their functions. But he can 
(and that is all I claim) summon into being every 
idea, emotion, or desire needed for such move- 
ments of the finger, or other physical members, as 
will actualize the (now) personal and voluntary 
power involved in moving it, or else required for 
any of the tasks of life set before him. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Choice and Moral Sanctions 

The problem in this chapter is to determine the 
function of those nltimating informations which 
cover acts of choice and personal responsibility. I 
recall some distinctions. Our reasons, viewed as 
intellections, express intellectual power, but viewed 
as emotions or desires they express personal power ; 
and both are employed in acts of choice and morals. 
This will be further explained, later on. 



To begin with a case of moral lapse or declension. 
Not seldom do we choose to indulge a literal demand 
of some sinful desire or purpose, or motive, moral 
protests to the contrary notwithstanding. Then, 
on the other hand, we may assert the claims of our 
better humanity in opposition to the former. This 
looks embarrassing ; for at first glance, one would 
think that the force of a rational and moral convic- 
tion would always be with the right, and that, there- 
fore, our personal preference would always be with 
the right. But this would be a grave mistake. 
Sufficient allowance must be made for our frail 
humanities, especially for the daring and perilous 
sweep of conception, in dealing with questions of 
p 209 



210 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

practical conduct, under conditions of temptation, 
alternative choice, and personal responsibility. 

We have choice between good and bad, but we 
must reap the inevitable consequences of our choice. 
And though we make a bad choice, we can never 
question the authority and blessedness of morals, 
albeit even morals are conditioned on a law which 
protests the divine right of choice and its tremen- 
dous responsibilities. 

Again, the idea or conception of right and wrong, 
as also that of choice between them, are equally 
achievements of mind. But mind cannot employ 
these conceptions at their best, unless they are 
maintained in their integrity. 

Furthermore, the sanctity of morals can neither 
be weakened nor effaced, except as the right of 
choice between right and wrong is effaced or weak- 
ened, through its sinful abuse. This will be ex- 
plained more fully as we proceed. 

Ponder another distinction. The mere discovery 
of the idea of right and wrong, or even that of choice 
between them, can never destroy the right of choice. 
We shall have to look otherwhere for that fearful 
undoing which overwhelms the right of choice. 

It would certainly be a surprising discovery, if on 
a discovery of a moral find, the discoverer should 
discover that he had thereby lost the right of re- 
sponsible choice. The moment such a discovery 
would be made, that very instant the obligatory 
force of morals would cease. Displace the right of 
choice, and even the conception of morals will cease 
with it, as will be explained in the sequel. 



CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 211 

Lost it may be, however, — but far otherwise. 
Only let one choose sin habitually, and he will 
know of the process; because he will have so 
fostered his evil propensities that they will compel 
the promptest subserviency to their behests. 

It would appear, then, that there is nothing in 
moral conceptions inimical to the right of choice. 
The obligation, though divine and because divine, 
is not compulsory. It appeals to us through the 
force of righteous convictions, imploring us to be- 
hold the way of life, and ponder the mischiefs of a 
wrong choice, and with it a profligate violation of 
our conception of right. 

Now, in all this matter of an appeal to our loftier 
humanities, we fail to see anything like the annihi- 
lation of the right of choice. On the contrary, it is 
an earnest, loving, tearful, and solemn appeal to our 
discretion, remitting the final decision to the tribu- 
nal of judgment and personal responsibility. And, 
as thus viewed, it becomes a problem for careful 
thought, a matter for conscience and information, 
— a search for ideas which are valued and employed 
in the affairs of personal conduct, like other infor- 
mations, at our peril. 

We may well pause, in view of the fearful 
retributions which follow the wanton disregard of 
such an appeal. But here is a temptation to in- 
dulge some sinful inclination, very persuasive to 
certain latitudinarian proclivities of choice. We 
contrast this with the life-giving principles of recti- 
tude. The alternatives are good or bad, right or 
wrong. We have choice among the reasons pro 



212 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

and con. What happens ? The sinful reasons pre- 
vail ! 

We choose sin, and take the consequence ! 

II 

Now it so happens that I hear an indignant 
reader exclaiming : " You have opened to us a view 
of the divine authority of right, and yet you say : 
'We can prefer sin/ What then becomes of the 
divinity of the obligation of morals ? What is 
clothed with divine sanctions should forever be the 
strongest reason, and so prevail against one not so 
clothed. And do you not concede that the strong- 
est reason always prevails ? " 

My reader seems to be clever, but a trifle touchy. 

However, facts are implacable. We can, and do 
sin. Indeed, we are moral agents solely through 
this stubborn power of choice between good and 
bad. Yes, we are so human, and so taught of 
our frail humanities, that we can take delight in 
naughty preferences and sinful pleasures. But if so, 
we must have reasons for it, for one cannot sin with- 
out them. And, therefore, are we determined to 
sin by them. And if thus determined, they must 
be to us (gifted as we are with the power to choose 
between diverse, and even opposite, ways of life) 
the most urgent reasons. For it is quite impossible 
for us to act on any reason which is overborne by 
stronger ones. 

You may be dazed by an order of things that 
permits sin. But there is a wisdom above man's. 
The truth is as I have stated it. We cannot be moral 



CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 213 

agents without this power to choose between good 
and bad, — at our peril. And, beyond doubt, we 
have a varied experience of both, and must have 
inclined to sin, for some reason, acting with it, or 
not, as we had power to overcome, or else resist, the 
evil. The power of our moral convictions, if not 
wholly blotted out, will assist us in the struggle. 
But repeated and profligate indulgence will, in time, 
become the dominant factor. 

I am arguing from the force of the reasons pres- 
ent to the sinner, in an act of choice. 

Mark the nature of his soul. 

His reasons may be good or bad in the forum of 
conscience, — an authority he never questions, so 
long as he can appreciate the normal significance 
of the two. For what is sin but a violation of 
right whilst acknowledging its sanctity ? But now 
that he has dallied with the baser choice, too often 
and too long, he puts the question evasively before 
the court of conscience. He feels his obligations 
and would not part from them. Still, his temper 
is a little uncertain. He is but awaiting " a more 
convenient season." 

He continues speciously. " I grant you the mag- 
netic impressiveness of morals, and do it homage, 
notwithstanding my many lamentable aberrations. 
But then, it is quite in keeping with my views of 
choice and personal responsibility for me to have an 
adequate, practical standard of comparison between 
right and wrong ; and I can have none until I have 
had a sharpened experience of the two, easy to 
hand, for any trustworthy estimate of their rival 



214 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

claims. And, even though. I do commit sin, do I 
not hold me fearfully responsible for my venture ? " 
I am not inclined to endorse this euphemistic, if 
not fantastic, subterfuge, though, perhaps, the sin- 
ner may be assigning his reason for the commission, 
in the hour of temptation and choice. His excuse 
is no justification. Of this, later on. 

And yet it is too true, that when he tramples on 
the right, with his eyes still open to its sanctity, 
some sinful reason carries the power that precipi- 
tates choice; and with choice of sin, its wasting 
train of consequences. But, after allowing for all 
the mischief he does to himself, and that is often 
irreparable, he may still count upon what is left of 
his right of choice, as an important aid to discipline 
and reformation. 

The conclusion is irresistible, therefore, that the 
right of choice is a pervading and constant feature 
which the mere authority of morals has no power 
to displace, for, although it can never be asserted in- 
dependent of moral conceptions, it may not always 
be upright. Moreover, though one be convinced 
that, if he give way to the bad, he will wrong his 
moral compunctions, yet if he does give way, he may 
still be regarded as maintaining his right of choice, 
albeit under a seuse of moral degradation which, if 
not relieved, and the right of choice be yet further 
abused, may ultimately disable the power to choose. 

Ill 

But, I am not done with the more serious aspects 
of the problem. It is to be understood that, though 



CHOICE AND MOKAL SANCTIONS 215 

everything must give way to that final phase of 
information which determines choice and personal 
responsibility, yet the sinner, meantime, is under- 
going a moral declension which is undermining the 
authority of his moral conceptions. The preroga- 
tive of choice, as a normal and beneficent power for 
good, is being gradually and insidiously blotted out, 
by as much as sinful practices have sapped the 
foundations of morals. Moral convictions are los- 
ing their wonted force, and the sinner lapses into 
forbidden paths. 

For, if one would preserve intact the right of 
choice, and, at the same time, be perfectly free, he 
should choose the right and maintain it firmly 
through life. He will then learn of a perfect law 
for both right and choice, good and liberty, which 
shall bless him in all he does; a law which will 
uphold the equal primacy of both, so long as he 
does right. 

I make no distinction between the power and 
right of choice. For our power to choose depends 
on whether we are, and to what extent, free from 
the despotism of profligate desires, and this involves 
the right to choose. For if we are slaves to the 
madness of passions, we shall do their bidding, and 
so doing, we shall trample under foot both the 
power and right of choice. 

I have explained that the constraint of morals 
can have no force and no place in conduct, except 
as mind uncovers the ideas of right and wrong, in 
order to a choice between them. And I could not 
imagine a stultification so vacuous as the contention 



216 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

that the mere discovery of such ideas as right and 
wrong should have the torsionary effect of wresting 
the right of choice from its foundations. This it 
cannot do, and is never done, so long as the discov- 
erer is free to put the force of moral convictions 
into what he does. But if he sin, and particularly, 
if he persist in it, his very convictions themselves 
become so utterly debauched that he is no longer 
able to resist the tyranny of his passions, and so, 
to that extent, abridges, or loses, the right of choice. 

This is not to say that the force of moral concep- 
tions is not a supreme authority to as many as defer 
to it, by a godly walk and conversation, only that, 
in the sinner's lapsed condition, the sinner's sinful 
reasons are the strongest to him, — some of his fairer 
gifts of moral appreciation having undergone a par- 
tial deformation. For the power of a moral concep- 
tion is not the same to the pure and impure. And, 
to prevent misconception, let me here state explic- 
itly that, if we stoop too often to pick up sin, the 
day will surely come when we shall dump our shaky, 
moral compunctions in the mire, and their afore- 
time office of reformation and righteous repression 
will forever cease. 

And now, to sum up what I have said, I reaffirm 
that the right of choice is never evicted, so long as 
we are in a condition to assert it, in opposition to 
vile practices. But then, on the other hand, I claim 
that the moral law is competent, at all times, to 
protect this right, if peradventure we have not, 
meantime, sunk our distinctive humanities beneath 
its reach, by a reckless abuse of the right of choice. 



CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 217 



IV 

I am now thinking of some further details which 
may be needed to support my contention, — confin- 
ing attention, more particularly, to some of the psy- 
chological evidences involved. 

Let us say that we have just conceived the idea 
of right and wrong, as also that of their antithesis, 
two very important informations, to begin with. 
For, here we have our first revelation of the essen- 
tial elements, upon which we found conduct, and 
the practical honesties and dishonesties of years of 
responsibility. 

A step further leads us to conceive the idea of 
choice between the alternatives, adjudging this 
choice to be so inseverable from us that we cannot 
part company from it, and be ourselves, at least so 
long as it is not literally overborne by the lusts of 
the flesh, — another important information. 

We now take some steps to appraise the value of 
right or rectitude ; and if we come to the conclusion 
that there is something in it so august that, if we 
do not give it precedence in comparison with other 
ideas, we must atone for the incivility in some way, 
we shall, then, be in a position to make a judicious 
choice between the alternatives of good and bad, — 
still another important information. 

Here I have brought out the two principles em- 
ployed in the government of conduct : the right of 
choice, and the authority of morals. 

Then, a time comes when we would avail our- 
selves of choice, and so have a practical knowledge 



218 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

of the two principles involved. We would know, 
from personal experience, what is the effect of an 
actual choice of good and bad upon our personal 
welfare; how we feel as personal and responsible 
actors in the drama of life, — still other important 
informations. 

Suppose, now, we choose the bad. It will be evi- 
dent that we have outraged the authority of morals. 
It will be apparent, too, that we have weakened the 
power of choice, by as much as we have set at 
naught the sanction of morals. For if the latter is 
contemned, the mischief of the vicious appreciation 
will appear in the former. 

Bear in mind that I am not making a distinction 
between the power and right of choice, for both 
are seen in an act of choice, even as both are weak- 
ened, whenever the righteous sway of morals is 
substituted by the domination of the passions ; for, 
constituted as we are, one or the other of these lat- 
ter must rule. 

However this may be, let me repeat that no man 
can have any real freedom of choice who lightly 
holds the authority of morals. Choice is always 
weakened, if not exterminated, when put to play- 
ing the artful dodger between right and wrong. If 
it would hold its own, it should cleave to the right, 
not solely because it is right, but also because it 
would be free, — as I shall endeavor to explain. 

It has been already remarked that the whole 
problem of conduct is a matter for the careful 
appreciations of thought. If, then, we should dis- 
cover the fact that the sanctity of rectitude should 



CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 219 

be held inviolable, not solely for reasons of morals, 
but for those of choice as well ; and if we should 
conclude that this information, if acted on, will 
secure us both moral good and free choice, in a 
measure adequate to satisfy the demands of our 
nobler humanities, then the power to choose be- 
tween right and wrong can neither derogate from 
morals nor from the freest choice. And now, if 
we can attain unto this mount of knowledge, and 
consistently abide in it, as our rule of conduct, we 
shall have discovered a way to establish both choice 
and morals, on an immovable foundation : we shall 
be free to choose the good. 

If any one would object that the habitual observ- 
ance of the law for rectitude may abridge the free- 
dom of choice, seeing it would practically inhibit 
choice of sin, let him observe that, in every act of 
moral choice, we are in effect choosing between 
good and bad, and so cannot choose the former 
without comparing it with the latter in order to 
our preference. 

Suppose, though, we do retrench the sweep of 
choice in the direction of the experiential immor- 
alities, we are certainly not retrenching the sweep 
of judgment and wise discretion ; and if these lat- 
ter lead us to turn away permanently from sin, 
then, surely, inasmuch as we have repulsed it for 
reasons of judicious choice, we have been fortifying 
the authority of morals whilst extending its sweep 
in the direction of our higher humanities. But, on 
the other hand, if we permit us an unlimited indul- 
gence in sin, the sweep of choice will be similarly 



220 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

retrenched in the direction of morals, if not alto- 
gether supplanted by the conquering hosts of un- 
bridled lusts. 

Here allow another word, per contra: We may 
say of the good man that he is constantly approxi- 
mating a condition of moral power, wherein he can 
eschew the bad for inhibitory reasons far surpass- 
ing those of the bad man, not simply because of 
his better appreciation of morals, but because he 
has a truer estimate of the intrinsic repulsiveness 
of sin. 

An immoral choice deforms both choice and mor- 
als. The crushing facts gleam upon us from every 
new vista in our pathway. 

Behold the process, for a moment. Eighteous- 
ness and sin have been deliberately affirmed as 
contrasting alternatives. Before us is an act to be 
done, and there can be no question of our ability 
to do it. The whole problem of right and wrong is 
up before us ; and we are careful not to act hastily, 
for we would see to it that we make a judicious 
choice between the two. And so the choice is 
made, and we side with the wrong. Right is out- 
raged, and her authority contemned. She may, 
nevertheless, continue the struggle, chasing the out- 
rage with the painful repressions of remorse. She 
inflicts a penalty for disloyalty, and in order to a 
possible reformation. But an authority, once con- 
temned, is, to that extent, crippled. It is to be 
remarked, however, that, in all this struggle, con- 
science is but making an effort to uphold the sanc- 
tity of right by proper reformatory methods, but 



CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 221 

without ever challenging the right to choose good 
or bad, in any one who has still any, the least rem- 
nant of it remaining. And this seems plain. 

And, therefore, whenever we are in a position to 
affirm that a bad choice shall not go unpunished, 
we are calling attention to the fact that we are 
neither adequately free, nor completely human, save 
as we conform to that law of rectitude which condi- 
tions true freedom on a judicious and conscientious 
choice. And, as bound by that law, it behooves us 
to see to it that we effect some conception of right, 
or duty, if we would ever have a self-respecting 
regard for ourselves. And, if we would have per- 
fect freedom, we should walk blameless in the 
law which has in charge the conative aspects and 
retributions of morals. 

For, here and nowhere else, is real freedom of 
choice. A violated law tells its own tale of humili- 
ation and ruin. The sentence of death is already, 
and ineffaceably, jotted down in the creative act 
which guards the sanctity of right, by the revenges 
which follow its violation. 



We are still in the shadow of a partial overthrow 
of the supremacy of choice, noting developments. 
Now, as ever, we act on reasons. The sinfulness of 
every desire that besets us has received its every 
content of power and character through the active 
intervention of mind. For what is such a desire 
(and I may include the propensities on which the 
desire may be founded) but our thought gazing at 



222 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

some object with an intensity of emotion that voices 
the potency of onr reasons ? 

It is to be nnderstood that we take the propensi- 
ties, at any moment on hand to a present thought, 
as under charge of that thought, and to be dealt 
with as it deals with any of our common sensations. 
For, like the latter, they contribute a peculiar batch 
of characters, of which thought may make use in 
reaching a decisive choice. 

Some may be sinful because we now conceive the 
sin; others, because we have done so aforetime, 
and sin sticks. 

We may, however, still choose, though on ac- 
count of our frequent dallying with sin, we now 
make choice from the lower level of a depraved 
outlook; our moral powers undergoing a declen- 
sion uniform with the grade of our turpitude. 
For, once tampering with sin, we may so foster 
the mob of unregenerate desires that their im- 
portunities may begin to have the force of over- 
mastering demands. And then the power of choice 
is shattered, and though we may still affect its 
exercise, we shall be but parading in the dilapi- 
dated toggery of a fallen empire. 

Nevertheless, if thought is not utterly vanquished, 
this right of choice, now so abused and battered, 
has a valid claim in the court of conscience, and 
so may even yet regain its normal supremacy. 

VI 

Here the question suggests itself, can mind lose 
the right of choice utterly, even though sinful de- 



CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 223 

sires be persistently cultivated to the last extreme 
of beastly excess ? 

If one be thrown headlong down a precipice, the 
propulsion is much more forceful and mechanical 
than rational. So of a reckless indulgence in sin. 
In this case, to revert to a previous illustration, 
the appeal is much stronger than a presbyterial 
overture. For, here, the overturists directly an- 
tagonize, and finally displace, the authority of the 
synod. And we need not add that this fate, not 
seldom, betokens the fall of the authority of reason 
and conscience. 

How then shall we interpret this palpable over- 
throw of moral choice ? 

We do not see that a soul ever becomes a slave 
to passions, either through some unaccountable 
eccentricity of his desires, propensities, or even 
hereditary bent, or, for that matter, anything not 
himself, or, at least, not of his own procurement. 
The man himself is the author of his own undoing. 
He might have controlled his sinful impulsions, 
but he did not do it. 

In other paragraphs, I availed myself of the 
privilege of witnessing him acquiring knowledge 
from all quarters, and then adventuring many per- 
formances through its power ; and I made up my 
mind that he could have such desires as came of 
his own procurement ; and act with clear vision of 
his personal responsibility for all he did, or could 
do. And, I endeavored to show that he had his 
desires made over to him by right of discovery, 
just as he got the thoughts that inspired them. 



224 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

And so, with such views, and feeling, as I did, that 
he framed every conception of sin and, therefore, 
of the objects of sinful desires as well, I was not 
surprised to find him devising a way to secure 
those objects. And I remarked, further, that as 
between a sinful inclination thus conceived and 
fostered, and the object desired, he had deliberately 
and actually preferred to commit the sin, and so 
made himself personally responsible for its com- 
mission. For, did he not take abundant care to 
secure this advanced order of personal motives, 
emotional, desiderative, and voluntary, and to train 
them to the office of moral factors, on deliberation 
and purpose, for his own behoof? And does he not 
take abundant pains to sate them with the very 
satisfactions he prefers ? 

And now, if he thus deliberately prefer sin, and 
act on his preference, the act is his own, and he 
alone is responsible. For, he has walked in the 
power of thoughts, which awoke him to a knowl- 
edge of the voluntary and responsible impulsions 
due to his human nature. 

But it is well to remember, in passing, that there 
is one thing beyond the power of thought at the 
command of man. Be his thought what it may, he 
has to defer to the inevitable revenges ivhich follow 
his sinful indulgences. He can by no means de- 
bauch his moral standards without losing the legiti- 
mate control of his emotions and desires, the power 
of choice and morals undergoing an equal declen- 
sion and final breakdown. In other words, there 
is an inability of will, as perhaps Jonathan Ed- 



CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 225 

wards put it, but as I would rather have it : The 
legitimate control of our moral conceptions is frit- 
tered away and lost by a base profanation of their 
divine sanctions. But, Jonathan Edwards aside, 
once lost, there is never more appeal to reason ; 
the self-assertion and now frenzied aberration of 
the passions allowing none. 

At this stage of my argument, it must be evident 
to the reader that I do not regard the action of our 
normal desires or even propensities, supposing they 
are under the discipline of thought, as presenting 
to conduct any illicit or unholy instigation which 
it cannot control. On the contrary, so long as rea- 
son retains a shred of conservatism, it inspires and 
puts its now (let us suppose) somewhat emascu- 
lated power into every desire realized in our practi- 
cal experiences, and to that extent is free. 

But, when it abdicates their control, the principle 
of freedom of choice is either partially or totally 
nullified. For when we enter upon a career of sin- 
ful practices, we may contract bad habits, and then 
the delirium of the passions may snatch the reins 
from the nerveless grasp of the intellect, and death 
burst upon the scene. 

If one gives way habitually to sinister influences, 
he is courting the final overthrow of moral princi- 
ples. It is only when our moral convictions are 
held as a dominant power, fearfully ours, and call- 
ing upon us to maintain their sway over conduct, 
that they become our rule of conduct. For, the 
more habitually one defers to the right, the more 
he has of true freedom. But suppose, now, that 

Q 



226 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

we have once gone into sin, do we not see that the 
normal force of our moral convictions is no longer 
so within our grasp that we can have either the joy 
or strength that comes to one who has walked in 
all the ordinances of moral freedom, undefiled ? 
But, if we weaken the authority of right, we shall 
so confuse, or else efface the very idea of moral 
freedom that we shall lose the capacity to appraise 
our moral conceptions, and so keep in touch with 
our truer humanities and truer freedom. Liberty, 
amended by a profane tampering with its sanctions, 
is fettered in chains. And moral choice is confined 
within limits, beyond which it may not pass, with- 
out danger of serious breakage. 

To be truly free is to have our freedom in hand, 
without flaw, or lapse, or declension of any kind. 
One must welcome the austere authority of right, 
let it retrench the bastard liberties of the evil-doer 
ever so much. 

The liberty that comes of a monster craze of the 
passions ends in death. 

VII 

So then, it comes to this : One cannot have a full 
measure of freedom without a law to enforce per- 
sonal responsibility, upon its violation ; and if this 
law be overborne by the despotism of unbridled 
passions, we are really worse than brutes, wanton- 
ing in excesses, without a thought of constraint; 
we are libertines, sensualists, voluptuaries, with 
the vulture of remorse preying upon our vitals. 

Now, how can we account for all this self-inflicted 



CHOICE AND MOKAL SANCTIONS 227 

ruin, so mournfully prevalent ? We may say that 
there is an inherent proclivity in our very nature, 
to seek a wilder liberty, through an infraction of 
its underlying principles. 

We may lack faith in our moral convictions, 
albeit we may never doubt their promise of good to 
such as walk in their ordinances. For the realiza- 
tion of a promise is projected into the future, and 
our frail faith may suppress its power ; and, lo, we 
turn away to seek happiness in sinful excesses of 
the present! This is the liberty of license and 
death. 

But why should it end in a banquet of death ? 
Here I confess to a fear that, notwithstanding the 
careful presentation of my views, the young reader 
may see nothing but a vast horde of vile propensi- 
ties going forth, of their own motion and force, to 
finish with, and disarm, the power of morals. But 
I would have him remember that these very pro- 
pensities, apparently so inimical to morals and free- 
dom (and whatever may be their native force and 
mission), cannot, at all, act without the cognitive 
surveillance of mind, and do not act upon conduct, 
unless as trained potencies, and as much our own 
potencies as any power of thought, or any power 
consciously achieved by thought; and if so, we 
have brought upon ourselves the desolations com- 
plained of. 

Intrinsically, as I have said, the power of moral 
convictions is stronger than any others, and should 
have precedence without question, and if we defer 
to it habitually, we shall know of the power of God 



228 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

and be blessed. But then, in order to our freedom 
and moral responsibility, just as soon as we can 
distinguish between right and wrong, we have an 
alternative choice, and can prefer even the baser 
than beastly gratifications which end in death ; for 
this seems to be the constitutive and fundamental 
law for this order of transformations. Indeed, so 
intent may we be upon some proximate sinful in- 
dulgence, and the process of moral dwarfing is so 
subtile and insidious that we may not feel the 
shackles we are forging until too late. But this is 
as much as to say: There is something originally 
tempting in sin, otherwise we had never made up 
our mind to it with its lengthening train of pains 
and penalties. 

The truth is that it could never, at all, become 
an object of choice, if it were so totally repulsive 
to our fairer and truer humanities that we could 
not feel inclined to it for reasons of choice, seduc- 
tively and deliberately immoral, seeing it is an 
alternative we are not driven to choose in defiance 
of reason of preference. 

VIII 

How, then, did we ever come to have this power 
to choose between right and wrong ? 

This is an old, old problem, concerning which 
this paper shall offer no bold teaching. All one 
can look for is a candid expression of views, within 
the pale of finite reason. 

True, I cannot see with the eyes of Omniscience, 
but I may see a valid reason for permitting the 



CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 229 

rise of sin under a dispensation which provides for 
a moral government coupled with pains and penal- 
ties, and connected with a plan of salvation which 
exalts the true believer even above the angels. 

And allow me to say that, although this plan is 
complicated with the question of eternal punish- 
ment, I think I can see why even such frail creat- 
ures as we are — always excepting such witless 
and godless humanitarians as take it upon them- 
selves to go before the Omniscient as an emergency 
force, to soften the rigor of eternal justice — why 
even such creatures as we are would not hesitate 
to rise, as one man, and demand the limitless pun- 
ishment, and even extinction, of a class of obdurate 
criminals whom it were impossible to deter from 
trampling upon the principles of purity and social 
rectitude upon which the very life of our common 
humanity rests. 

But the ultimate reason why sin and death came 
into the world no man can tell. Omniscient thought 
and righteousness alone can answer that question. 
But why should we stumble at the mystery, at least, 
so long as we are not permitted to have an all-com- 
prehensive vision of the universe ? 

Outside nature has a rock-ribbed scheme of trans- 
formations peculiar to herself. The vegetable and 
animal kingdoms have each a several scheme distinct 
from the former, so also has man one uniquely his 
own. And no man can understand either thoroughly. 
How unspeakably unjust, then, would it be to com- 
pare these diverse works to the disadvantage of 
either? Who can compare the poet Keats with 



230 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

Achilles or Ajax? Who has the psychological 
ability to compare mind with mere physical power ? 

Still, two paintings may be compared in respect 
of their fidelity to nature, and we may see that one 
will surpass the other, for we are comparing works 
of one man with another's. But now let us con- 
ceive a painter of diviner vision than any other 
man. He has for motive-subject, let us imagine, 
the sea, and its wild rolling waves. The painter's 
vision is away off into the illimitable distances. 
The perceptive appreciations of his eye surpassing 
those of any ordinary man, it would be quite natu- 
ral for him to depict a coloration of waves at great 
distances quite different from the dark, deep, sea- 
green plastering seen in our best canvases. Indeed, 
the characteristic positions and curves peculiar to 
the shifting and blending of the fluctuations might 
be caught up and rendered with a degree of truth, 
literally bewildering to outsiders. But whether a 
superior power of perspective could accomplish this, 
I know not, for I am not a painter. 

Now what would be the judgment of contempo- 
rary artists on such a picture ? Not seeing nature, 
as he saw it, they would pounce upon it as a sheer 
perversion of her actual look, a wanton spoliation 
of her features. Whereas, in fact, he alone would 
be giving us a bit of nature, a picture truer to 
nature, but not to be seen with our imperfect eyes. 

It is readily seen that, with shortened visual 
apperceptions, and denser perspective insight, the 
adverse criticism could never be justified, It takes 
a higher order of mind to pass upon a higher order 
of work. 



CHAPTER XX 

Alternative Choice 
I 

This problem is difficult. The sturdiest thinker 
may not solve it. It should have careful thought 
and fair treatment. Du Bois-Reymond shall begin 
the argument : " That in a given instant one or the 
other of two things will happen is unthinkable," 
says he. I enter no dissent, not seeing where the 
trouble comes in. For, taking thought to be free 
is no reason, so far as I can see, why its acts of 
choice are so ordered that "in a given instant 
one or the other of two things will happen," or that 
either shall happen irrespective of a rational pref- 
erence of one. Reasons lay hold of "one," and 
cast out " the other " : Reasons determine choice. 
ISTo reasons, no choice ; no " one " and no " other." 

And choice is a rational preference of " one," 
on information which forbids our selecting "the 
other" ; not the indifference of an idiot, flitting heed- 
lessly from one thing to another. It is the absolute 
negation of rational indifference, and means that 
we are acting on some final reason for preferring 
" one of two things." We prefer the one and reject 
the other, until we see a reason for a change of con- 
viction. The stronger reason will forever displace 
231 



232 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

a weaker. So, whenever we have this stronger rea- 
son, we have our choice, or rational preference, and, 
along with this, a righteous personal responsibility. 

When, therefore, we choose the " one," we reject 
"the other," by a rational preference and rejection, 
not because, for example, we can taste apple and 
peach, and then take either, ignoring the difference, 
without concern, wish, or aversion, as between the 
two. The force of some reason or information, in 
accordance with which we cleave to one of two 
alternatives, determines our partiality, or prefer- 
ence for it. The person as responsible, is as much 
in every act of choice, as in every act of thought. 

And so, it is indeed " unthinkable " for one who 
acts on choice to stride from one to the other, 
whilst holding to one, without making any differ- 
ence. The act of choice confines him to the chosen 
alternative, at the " instant " of choice. 

The result is that, if choice of the one is a rejec- 
tion of the other, % then, every such choice is a 
rational discrimination, and preference, which pre- 
cludes our choosing the latter in the self-same 
instant we are holding to the former. 

If we make choice at all, we shall have to stand 
upon our prevailing reason, and a prevailing reason 
cannot be prevailed against. Indeed, we cannot 
rise to a full act of choice, until the power of some 
prevailing reason comes in to complete our choice. 

II 

But my position may be apprehended the better, 
if set forth in the lines of some conclusions reached 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 233 

in previous discussions. This I will presently offer 
to do. 

Thought secures choice. Having thought, we 
have a reason for choice, and act upon our reason ; 
that is to say, we prefer, or choose, in accordance 
with our cognitive intimations, and so, if we are 
free, we are beholden to some power of our thought, 
and not to an alien force. 

If these views are correct, it is evident that 
choice is not free (indeed is not anything), in the 
sense of being independent of motives or reasons, 
but acts through their power ; and that this power, 
whether manifested in emotions or desires, or 
otherwise traced back to pure intellections, is the 
energy that goes finally into conduct and deeds. 
We are beholden to our own efforts, for any 
knowledge we ever have, searching for and appro- 
priating our finds; and that knowledge alone is 
our causal efficient, ours and free, because, having 
acquired it discursively, we can make use of it cona- 
tively, free from causal constraint ab extra. 

Then again, choice must not, indeed cannot, be 
made over to us by any exterior agency. It must 
come, if at all, through the informations we have 
been at pains to work for, or more correctly, through 
the one we have decisive reasons for acting on. 
For, unless I acquire the power to discriminate 
between two competing alternatives, and to elect 
one, how can I take to it by a rational preference, 
or on the other hand, reject the other, by a posi- 
tive, tangible affirmation of its ineligible traits ? 

To do, or not to do, one or the other of two things 



234 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

is decided by an act of judgment affirming prefer- 
ence, and therefore precluding the motiveless flop- 
ping about from one to the other alternative, of 
course with variations quite " unthinkable " and 
innumerable. 

The power of a final reason explodes in a selective 
restriction to one. And this power, let me repeat, 
being ours by right of intelligent acquisition, is, 
hence, equally ours, when employed in committing 
us to a line of conduct which we have chosen, and 
for which we hold ourselves personally responsible. 

And, therefore, would I emend Du Bois-Key- 
mond's dictum, so as to have it read : " That in a 
given instant one or the other of two things will 
happen " (in defiance of a prevailing reason) "is 
unthinkable." This lets in the facts which cover 
the case, giving the proper (selective) power of the 
decisive word in acts of choice, to the agency which 
has been to the trouble, both to discover the alter- 
natives, and the reasons for choice, between them. 
And this is all I claim for it. Choice, then, is a 
rational preference. And so, indeed, a non-rational 
choice is inconceivable. The power of some deci- 
sive thought must be present, to commit us per- 
sonally to acts for which we are consciously and 
personally responsible. 

Ill 

Here an objector presents his view : "We grant 
all you say, still, how could one choose either of 
two alternatives, without being led to his choice 
either by his character or precedent reasons? 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 235 

For answer to this I remark: 1. We make our 
character what it is by discovering the informations 
that determine its nature, mission, and value, and 
have thus made it ours by force of the thoughts 
that went to equip it for the work of choice. 

2. Having thus acquired all the informations 
that can be construed as in any way efficient in 
attempering choice, we have acquired the right to 
employ them as our own, whether acquired now, or 
at any previous time. So then, it comes to this : 
If we have a present reason, free by right of intel- 
ligent discovery, how can it be under bondage to 
those previously acquired in order to it, and like- 
wise free by the same right? The precedent 
and present reasons are equally free, and equally 
ours, by the same right of discovery. In other 
words, we have both character and choice, through 
the informations which go to make them what they 
are, and to make them ours, to be used as our own. 

Our antecedent acquisitions stand to the subse- 
quent ones as enabling attainments, much like edu- 
cational advantages to children, qualifying them 
for thinking and acting for themselves. For, when 
children act from native impulses, and without the 
guidance of thought, the impulses are everything, 
and the actors nothing but puppets played upon by 
powers not their own. But when taught of the 
ideas they have achieved, they have educated poten- 
tials in hand for determining choice and conduct, 
and so become responsible actors ; acting and 
responsible by reason of informations, whether 
acquired in the present, or at any other time. 



236 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 



IV 

I note, in passing, some other distinctions. 
Choice must be of something allowable. On the 
way to its last stage, it is either alterable, or unal- 
terable. We are often, for a season, as much pur- 
posed to choose one alternative as another ; for we 
may be making our way in doubt. Still, we are 
never wholly indifferent in the presence of our 
alternatives. 

We are not to suppose, however, that every opin- 
ion is open to change. Some have our unchange- 
able assent. An endless stream of changes would 
secure neither certainty nor stability, and choice 
would be futile, vanishing utterly in a flux of con- 
secutions without result. 

Contrariwise, the search for a definitive choice 
is a quest for something definite and certain, a 
search for an access of discursive power, sufficient 
for a chosen result. For we are battling for a 
teleological find, and must take thought, in view of 
the personal ends and interests at stake. 

The first important step we take is to conceive 
and outline our competing and contrasting alterna- 
tives. Then follow many tentative conceptions as 
to their eligibility, or ineligibility, in respect of 
what we shall do with ourselves and things not our- 
selves, etc., etc. All this to prelude what follows. 

Necessitarians assume that, if allowed to choose, 
we are at the mercy of shoreless uncertainties, 
but if we have certainty, we are in the jaws of 
necessity. I enter here a general and particular 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 237 

denial of both assumptions. I shall remark first 
upon the argument from uncertainties, confining 
my attention, for the present, mainly to what pre- 
cedes and prepares for the coming out of choice. 

To begin with, let us believe that we have to 
wrestle with a world of uncertainties. We are not 
self-luminous, neither are we filled with all knowl- 
edge from start to finish. We have to cleave our 
way, as best we can, to certainties, resting on the 
evidences for the facts, which we can affirm and 
act upon. Furthermore, we are impelled to elabo- 
rate, and hold to, opinions, on consideration of the 
evidences for them, — because we would not have 
them (indeed they cannot be) thrust upon us, in 
defiance of our consent, but would rather have them 
discovered and wrought up by cognitive methods 
which attest our judgment, and put us on the road 
to choice and responsibility, where we can act as 
we think. For, when one acts discursively, he 
becomes personally implicated in solving the prob- 
lems on which he acts ; asserting powers of his 
own, and struggling for more. 

The opinion on which we act may be one of a 
thousand, and may hang on the brink of disaster 
a thousand times. At one moment, it may be 
supreme, at another, crowded aside by others, and 
so on, ad infinitum. 

Often, the leading points of the best matured 
plans have to be abandoned, and often, again, impor- 
tant decisions annulled, the check to our policy be- 
coming absolute. We may be a nation struggling 
for supremacy on land and water. If we adhere to 



238 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

old wont and custom, we may encourage our rivals 
by proofs of weakness, irresolution, etc. And, 
thereupon, we resolve to disenchant them, lest, per- 
adventure, we invite assault, when least prepared 
for it. 

That this nice balancing of views results in a 
corresponding vacillation of purpose is evident. 
But in all this shifting of position, we are but tax- 
ing the mind's distinctive resources to arrive at cer- 
tainty of choice and action. And, if so be we reach 
a conclusion exact to these requirements, we have 
gained our point. We have reached a decision that 
goes forth into result as a voluntary certainty 
springing from the power of thought. We have 
seen our way to a cognitive result, and cannot 
longer dally with the uncertainties we were afore- 
time eliminating. 

And now, the world has an indubitable certainty, 
modulated into conformity to our thoughts. 

Here I interpose a passing remark : The un- 
certainties, referred to above, arise, not so much 
from the sheer difficulty of reaching a certain con- 
clusion (anybody of the ordinary sort can have such 
by the thousands), as from the fact that we may 
not feel bound to act on even the correctest conclu- 
sion, seeing we can choose moral good or bad, on 
condition of personal responsibility for our choice. 
And so, we have a very common uncertainty which 
arises from the fact that, for reasons of choice, we 
accommodate opinion to the cry of our degraded pro- 
pensities and sinful habits. 

I am not now to discuss morals. I am simply 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 239 

claiming that all these, and other, uncertainties, at 
least so far as they help us on the way to choice 
and action, are the characteristic features of a free 
cause, as contradistinguished from either a necessi- 
tating one, or an alleged power to choose any alter- 
native, irrespective of a prevailing reason. And, 
therefore, is it evident that, so far from clashing 
with the prerogatives of choice, they are in order 
to its discovery and command of its own multitu- 
dinous rational certainties, opening the way to a 
chosen result. And in so doing, thought has gone 
to the trouble of placing within the pale of fact and 
reality a whole class of certainties, rational and 
voluntary, unknown to and beyond the reach of blind 
material transformations, for they are not mechan- 
ical results, but discursive achievements born of 
thought. 

What is of nature, belongs to nature, what of 
thought, to thought. The diversities of the two 
can never be commuted, and never equated. The 
essential certainties, for the thoughtful and respon- 
sible factor, are a prevailing reason and the choice 
which is born with and founds on that reason. 

I explain further. Thought seeking reasons why 
it should, or should not, pursue a given line of con- 
duct, is quite a different thing from what it is 
when in an act of choice and performance. In the 
former, though we may form any number of waver- 
ing, but valid, opinions, we may not see our way to 
choice, with absolute certainty. In the latter, we 
stand upon a finality, the power of thought giving 
us a chosen result. Whether the difficulty of pre- 



240 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

diction obtains equally in things material is not 
within the scope of our present inquiry. What is 
uncertain for any reason is so, only because it is 
unknown. And, whether there is as much, or 
more of it, in the one case as in the other, I do 
not know, and do not care to know. A voluntary 
cause is sufficient unto itself, by a law of thought 
which discovers its own certainties, and which per- 
mits and conditions choice and personal responsi- 
bility, on the presence of a prevailing reason. 

Such a discursive cause may have to make the 
acquaintance of uncertainties innumerable. But 
then, its mission is to take charge of these uncer- 
tainties, and carefully labor up to conclusions on 
which it may act decisively. And in all this, it 
is a discoverer and revealer of a transformed and 
transcendent order of facts denied to any form or 
combination of matter which cannot act on its 
reasons (if it have any). But such uncertainties 
as are gone upon in view of results are part and 
parcel of every problem of morals and conduct 
brought before a competent intelligence. 

The measure of all certainty is thought and its 
rational standards, and if this is so, it will be at 
pains to guard against any uncertainty of choice 
between two alternatives. It has discovered a 
knowledge, say, of the sequences of material causa- 
tion, and communes with these as evidencing some 
trace of creative intelligence left in that work. It 
remarks that no event can take place independent 
of some law of thought to safeguard its advent. 
For, if anything could come at the call of utter 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 241 

lawlessness, the whole scheme of mind, power, and 
action, for man, would fall to the ground. 

Thought discovers and acts upon some law of 
thought in all it does. When the merchants of 
New York would ship goods to the Great West, 
we do not find they go by the way of Spitzbergen 
or the Amazon. A discursive law of some kind is 
forever on the watch against such a peripatetic 
diversion. Everything, everywhere, acts as it is, 
or has been, informed by some inviolable behest of 
thought. And here, I need not say that matter is 
so bound by the law for material sequences that 
it has no action of its own, and no power to deter- 
mine any. Thought, too, has to conform to the 
fundamental laws of its creation, in virtue of which 
it has been left free to determine actions of its own 
by powers of its own. And, now, because it is an 
innovating, constructive, cognitive force, with power 
to act on the informations it achieves, its task is to 
win a fresh wealth of verities, utterly unknown in 
the realm of material transformations. 

For example, the natural walk of electricity is 
necessitated. As conditioned by natural limita- 
tions, it can never press forward into the new 
combinations so recently sought out by scientists. 
So, also, in the manufacture of metals, we may re- 
mark a number of chemical reactions taking place 
at the command of, and in accordance with, some 
requirement of thought. 

A rational certainty is, then, not one of this cast- 
iron sort, but has to be elaborated, and integrated 
by some present effort of thought. 



242 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

And for this reason, we may not predict every dis- 
cursive event with absolute certainty. But if we 
could, where would be the need of choice, seeing 
we could, then, have our own, and our neighbor's, 
actions consciously affirmed in the present ? 

Indeed, if we could antecedently trump up acts 
still in the future, and still depending on future 
inclinations to good or bad, this exhaustive sweep 
of prediction would be omniscient. Moreover, an 
unlimited power of forecasting results among men, 
would, in practice, amount to a thoroughgoing com- 
munism of intellects absolutely identical and omni- 
scient. But if we are to be free, and individually 
responsible, Ave have at our command a power of 
rational discursion and research which will provide 
the world with an order of certainties and acts born 
of our individual thoughts. And yet it is a distin- 
guishing trait of an agent, individually thoughtful, 
that, whilst his acts may be logically certain (and 
when gone upon, logically determined certainties), 
they may never be foreknown with absolute cer- 
tainty; unless, perhaps, you could identify your 
mind with your neighbor's, and also anticipate 
every turn of thought, and every extraneous cir- 
cumstance of the future. 

V 

So far, we have not seen the shadow of the 
faintest resemblance of necessity in acts of choice. 
But a new horror flits across the stage ! 

It is objected that when choice becomes unchange- 
able and certain, it is because of the reasons which 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 243 

constrain and compel ns to make it. Now, we might 
admit all this constraint, etc., and then deny that 
the force of our reasons, be they ever so stringent, 
can militate against our freedom of choice. We 
do admit that the march of thought is onward and 
irresistible. For we are so tied down to our reasons 
that we cannot break with them. Our choice is 
for reasons so invincibly ours, that we cannot take 
sides against them, without taking sides against 
ourselves. Their power is our own. We have, 
first, the force of the thoughts we have achieved, 
and, then, their consummation in choice, as result. 

However, let us now have a fair exhibit of the 
quality and intent of their peculiar constraint. 
And here it is pertinent to inquire, how we ever 
came to have alternatives before us, competing for 
preference ? Observe two ordinary ones. How 
did they become such ? Only through the power 
of some thought of ours, placing them in contrast. 
As alternatives, they have neither power, nor ex- 
istence even, except what we have given them in 
the act of conception that parts them off into con- 
trasted, but elective, constituents, for the exercise 
of a discriminating partiality. 

Now then, inasmuch as we cannot constrain our- 
selves by our own powers, — for all such pressure 
must have our own consent, and would therefore 
be our own, and not that of an exterior force, — 
the question of constraint is resolved into one of 
consent, determined by our reasons, and therefore 
devoid of the least taint of necessity, in the ordi- 
nary acceptation of the term. And so, we have 



244 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

the alternatives of choice, with their quality and 
quantum of power, made such by the conceptive 
and constructive efficiency of mind; made what 
we would have them to be, in power, pressure, or 
constraint. 

VI 

Consider, now, what takes place in an act of 
choice. 

We have just made our alternatives available 
in an act of conception. And, now, if we make 
choice of either, we must conceive a reason for it. 
So, we compare the one with the other, in order to 
ascertain which is the more eligible. We are in 
quest of informations on which to act; informa- 
tions, whose special power we employ when we 
prefer (choose) one thing and reject another. 

Eemember, we had to resort to reasons for set- 
ting up the sign of alternative choice in our mind. 
And now, we would have reasons for coming to an 
actual choice, preferring one thing to the other. 

Here my argument is that this sign of eligible 
alternatives previously set up in our minds, as 
above stated, does, in fact, suggest (orient) alterna- 
tive action ; and, if we act on the suggestion and 
make choice, we are but giving reality to one of 
the eligible constituents of our alternative concep- 
tion. We end, as we start. Completed choice is 
conception realized; and this, in turn, is but to 
realize, or give a practical issue to, the force, press- 
ure, or constraint of our conceptions, — on choice, 
preference, or consent. 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 245 

VII 

It is further objected that the very force of our 
convictions so fastens choice to one of the alterna- 
tives that we are disabled from choosing the other, 
and that, therefore, there is, after all, no such thing 
as a free alternative choice. 

This objection, whatever else it may mean, im- 
plies that a free choice calls for certain indefinable 
and unfathomable, voluntary variations taking place 
in defiance of reason and judgment. This would 
certainly be very " unthinkable. " 

Among a certain class of theorists, there seems 
to be a vague notion that a free cause should be 
made of anything that comes handy. But, let 
such advanced thinkers try their hand at giving us 
their definition of a will, minus a, prevailing reason 
charged with the proper efficiency for determining 
acts. Of course, there can be no acts of any kind 
without power of some kind to produce them. But 
the very moment they would equip such a handy 
cause with power to act, this pretentious argument, 
from a forceful vigor of reasons to necessity, or, if 
you prefer, from the absence of a prevailing reason 
to a free cause or free determination, would fall to 
the ground. 

As a matter of fact, consciously affirmed in all 
manner of discursions, we get the opinion we want, 
and put it to work, where we want ; going with it, 
where we want it to go ; and it has the precise 
amount, and kind, of power, we want it to have, 
and no other. 



246 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

For, whatever the opinion may be on which we 
act, it, and its power, or pressure, is ours by right 
of conception, preference, and conation, and, when 
we make choice, it does not mean that our opinion 
can be emptied of its power, and, evasively and 
indifferently, make for any alternative. 

If we choose at all, it must be for sufficient rea- 
sons, and if so be we acquire these, we have ac- 
quired the power to choose and act. Constraint, or 
bondage, coming from an appreciative discrimina- 
tion of our own select alternatives, is a self-contra- 
diction. Our thought, as causative, is but the force 
of our reasons, as active. And, if nothing but this, 
the pressure is of our own procurement, that is to 
say, by virtue of intelligent elaboration. 

But, perhaps, a simpler way of testing this gen- 
eral theory of constraint, or compulsion, would be 
a brief contrast of our own powers with powers not 
our own. 

You bid a servant to do this or that ! He obeys, 
with consent and on reflection. And so, the deter- 
mination is his own and therefore free, by right of 
consent. But, he may disobey, for good reasons. 
In this, too, he is free from bondage to opinions 
not his own, for he held fast to his own, and dis- 
obeyed. But now, if he obey under pressure from 
his neighbor, he would be a slave. And the same 
is true of any exterior force overriding one's rea- 
sons. It would be a case of bondage, compulsion, 
necessity, etc. 

But freedom to choose enables the chooser to com- 
pass his ends by the power of his own thoughts; 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 247 

his acts responding to the call (here power) of some 
decisive conviction. Our causality is an act of con- 
sent, or choice. 

We may here ponder another illustration. If, in 
the existing order of things, all the resources of 
thinking had been committed to a select few, who, 
having thus a monopoly of ideas, apportioned them 
out among the ignorant rabble, then, these latter 
might rightfully complain of bondage to ideas not 
their own, and because not their own. And yet, 
notwithstanding all this intellectual despotism, if 
the masses themselves were still free to conceive 
it to be for their good, they would be free, to that 
extent. 

And so, from every point of view, the conclusion 
is irresistible that the acts of a free agent can have 
neither existence nor power, except so far as he has 
power of thought to decide upon them. How, then, 
can anything exterior come in, as an interloper, be- 
tween our thought and its power, at least so long 
as we are permitted to do our own thinking ? 

What we have through mind must have our sanc- 
tion, for it comes at our call, and so, is free. 

We may constrain other things, but can never 
constrain a thought, or be constrained, or necessi- 
tated, by one. Consider what takes place in mov- 
ing an arm. Thought is both cognitive and actile, 
or conative, with no intermediary between it and 
what it does. The act is its own, and, therefore, 
free. True, we avail ourselves of bone, muscle, 
nerves, etc., instrumentalities furnished of God. 
But, as previously explained, so far as we can take 



248 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

advantage of furnished materials coming from any 
source whatever, they certainly do not unfit us for 
exercising our voluntary powers upon them. 

When America was discovered, the aborigines 
knew nothing of iron. The more thoughtful Span- 
iard brought it over. The Indian picked it up, and 
used it. Did the iron, thus furnished, abridge his 
freedom, any more than the copper with which he 
had furnished himself, ages before the advent of 
the Spaniard ? Was he any freer without it ? 

At all events, the use we make of our arms or 
limbs does not estop, or hinder, or conflict with our 
discursive freedom in the least particular. To put 
our power on things exterior to our thought, even to 
constrain them to serve our purposes, is a plain vin- 
dication of the several power of mind. And, to take 
that step, we must acquire a fit knowledge of them, 
and what we can do with them. In other words, 
we make up our mind that we can employ them to 
our advantage, and then act in pursuance of our 
thought, doing what we prefer doing. 

Now, to apply this line of remarks to the subject 
in hand, we maintain that, although man may con- 
strain other things to his purposes, he may never, 
at all, constrain, or be constrained by, his own 
thoughts. He is very careful to work up to the 
complexity of the task before him, but ever with a 
view to actualizing his thoughts. And so, the ques- 
tion is, not that he can make use of other things, 
but whether he can have an opinion of his own and 
take advantage of it, be it what it may, and ex- 
ercised on what it may. 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 249 



VIII 



And now I would have a last word or two with 
the logicians. I have no unkindness for logic of 
the veracious sort. But when plain facts contra- 
dict nineteenth-century, syllogistic reasoning, I 
may be fairly excused for losing faith in the argu- 
ment for necessity stated in that traditional form. 
I give it in full : — 

1. Every change is caused. 
A volition is a change. 
It is, therefore, caused. 

2. What is caused, is necessitated. 
A volition is caused. 

It is, therefore, necessitated. 

And now for our animadversions ! The major 
premise of the second syllogism (what is caused, is 
necessitated) is neither an axiomatic, nor universal, 
truth. It is no truth at all. It is a palpable per- 
version of fact, a suppressio veri. But facts, alone, 
should determine the contents of our syllogisms. 
For, if not informed by these, they cannot be toler- 
ated in any court of reason. What is needed, is 
not a regulation form of words, but a plain state- 
ment in any words that will carry the facts. 

I own that my views call in question the so-called 
universal law of causation, a law which has domi- 
nated and crazed logic from time immemorial. 
I deny that this law can embrace the universe of 
mind. Nor is there any conceivable reason why 



250 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

it should. A law of causation, universal for mat- 
ter, is all right. And a law of causation, universal 
for mind, is equally right. No one need disturb 
either. And there is no reason why anything, 
under heaven, should disturb either law, least of 
all should a law of matter overstep its plain limi- 
tations, and displace one peculiar to mind. It 
would be just as reasonable to contend that a law 
for discursion and choice displaces the law of gravi- 
tation. However that may be, there seems to be, 
nowadays, a widely prevalent feeling, a relic of the 
a priori teachings, that a law is in better form, 
or, at least, a better law, if you give it a wide ex- 
tension; the wider, the better. Eemark the gen- 
eral tendency to discover the universal law. From 
time immemorial we meet with these all-compre- 
hending universals. There is the universal (?) law 
of gravitation. But does that law apply to mind, 
or I might say, to electricity and the luminiferous 
ether? Pray, tell me, if either of the above is 
ponderable. Besides, illustrations drawn from what 
matter is and does, are utterly valueless for the 
interpretation of the self-conscious cognitions and 
transformations of mind, to say nothing of electric- 
ity and the luminiferous ether, neither of which, so 
far as I can see, are either mind or matter. It may 
seem strange, but is yet a fact, that everything in 
the universe is privileged, by common consent, to 
have its peculiar class of powers for doing its 
peculiar kind of work, — except thought. But 
why should it be contraband ? Why should it not 
be free to hold a court of discursion, judgment, and 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 251 

choice, and manage its own affairs, in its own 
way? 

It has certainly a history, not to say a folk-lore, of 
its own, along with that of causation ; and no law 
of material causation has ever dared to say nay to 
its acquiring informations, and consequently power 
specially qualified to command a result in accord- 
ance with the distinctly discursive methods which 
furnish us with deeds, or acts, for which we are 
personally responsible. But in order to an even- 
handed discussion with necessitarians of the syllo- 
gistic camp, I construct a pair of syllogisms which, 
let us hope, have some respect for facts. 

1. What is voluntarily caused, affirms the volun- 
tary power of the antecedent. A volition is volun- 
tarily caused. Therefore it affirms the voluntary 
power of its antecedent. 

2. What is accomplished by the power of a 
sufficient reason, is a voluntary act or free achieve- 
ment. An act of choice is thus accomplished. It 
is, therefore, a voluntary act or free achievement. 

These syllogisms will be referred to, and ex- 
plained in connection as we proceed. You are 
careful to notice that I am recognizing the fact 
that, when a cognitive cause passes on to result, 
the latter is the final stage of the former. A pecul- 
iar cause will forever give a peculiar result, let a 
law for material causation be what it may. For 
example : Two men at work on the same subject- 
matter will reach results as characteristically dis- 
similar as their dissimilar casts of mind, and the 
different mental and other training they have under- 



252 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

gone. But why ? Because each has a power of 
thought distinctly individual and personal, in re- 
spect of quality and vigor. Now, to compare men- 
tal and material, or mechanical, power, what forbids 
the former, as a cause distinctly individual and 
dissimilar, achieving results characteristically free 
in contrast with the latter? It has been shown 
elsewhere that, in any work of mind, its impress 
may be traced in all we know of that work. The law 
for uniformity in nature, and diversity of causes, 
affirms all this when it declares that like causes 
produce like results. And it results, as a conse- 
quence from a principle, that unlike causes produce 
unlike results. 

Indeed, until you allow for the peculiarities of 
the cause, all you can affirm of any result is that it 
is caused, nothing more. But the question whether 
it is free or necessitated, even the how and where- 
fore of its modus operandi, lies wholly with the 
several ability of the antecedent. And, therefore, 
when thought conceives a result posited in futuro, 
and which it afterward achieves, this result can 
claim no other antecedent efficient than the voli- 
tional one that cognitively achieved it, if it be per- 
mitted to give its own version of the details of 
performance. 

Ponder distinctly what we have before us. I 
need scarcely say, an actor and his act. If he is 
free in conceiving his act, can any one tell me how 
he turns up a slave by completing the act ? The 
power seated in his thought has simply moved from 
the former to the latter, — the completed act only 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 253 

making the transition and transaction the better 
known, or knowable, as a whole, — giving ns the 
finishing touches to a deed or work, to which we 
have committed ourselves irrevocably. And, there- 
fore, should our syllogisms be so constructed as 
to cover these facts. 

I repeat : A thought once free, as cause, cannot 
take up any tinge of necessity from the fact of 
going on to completion, as result. The same effi- 
ciency that conceives completes the result ; and so 
both conception and result are attempered by the 
voluntary findings and determinations of mind. 

That the power of thought may compel or neces- 
sitate exterior things by as much as it can modify 
or control their wonted transformations in the in- 
terest of itself has been previously explained ; but 
always in order to accomplishing our purposes, and, 
therefore, as ancillary to a contemplated result. 
But, in this case also, our act, taken as the realiza- 
tion of a preceding conception, is but the intelligent 
renewal and complete establishment of the conception 
whose power went forth to consummate it. As 
conception, or reason, or motive, or voluntary im- 
pulse, it has only assumed a final phase which we 
agree to name result, or completed choice. For, 
result must first be conceived, ere it can ever be 
achieved. And, if so, it is potentially achieved 
when only conceived ; the sole difference being in 
the stage of action reached, whereby what was once 
potential is now an active, and actually operative, 
cause. 

And now, allow me to ask, if the mere potential 



254 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

is free and voluntary, how can it become bond by- 
taking a resolutely decisive step ? Would it not be 
quite as reasonable for one to say it is necessitated, 
because it is in process of completion, as because it 
has reached completion ? 

And here, I should perhaps explain that, as a 
cognitive result is conceived and gone into on pur- 
pose, it will often require a prolonged study to 
reach a decisive conviction exact for the determina- 
tion of a satisfactory choice. And therefore again, 
choice as result from our study, is a personal achieve- 
ment conceived to be for our good (or bad), etc., 
and is, therefore, informed of all these particulars 
of thought ; and, if so, then, opinions, motives, voli- 
tions, etc., are preeminently achievements of per- 
sonal power by and for the agent, and, as such, are 
logically employed in the tasks of free determi- 
nations. 

So much to clear the way for constructing a syl- 
logism which shall be informed of and conserve the 
controlling facts of free determinations. 

IX 

I propose now, to offer a syllogism which, I may 
hope, will accommodate the facts, and the logic of 
the facts uncovered in the discussions of the pre- 
ceding section ; for I am not quite done with the 
false assumptions of these mechanical views of vol- 
untary determinations. 

3. Every change that is a conscious renewal, and 
establishment of the power that conceived it, is a 
free result. 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 255 

Motives, opinions, reasons of choice, etc., are a 
conscious renewal, and establishment of the power 
that conceived them. 

Therefore they are free results. 

It will be seen, and I hope the reader will care- 
fully note the fact, that I am here regarding mo- 
tives, opinions, reasons, etc., for choice, not now as 
causes going into results when we are ripe for them, 
but as results from our previous efforts to achieve 
them, and therefore determined, or fetched by those 
previous efforts. For what is born of a previous 
perceptive, conceptive, analytic, and synthetic elab- 
oration and combination of materials, is the result 
of those previous efforts. 

And surely, any information, or idea on which 
we may finally act, and here viewed as beholden to 
some careful, previous pondering, cannot be any- 
thing but the conscious renewal and complete estab- 
lishment of the antecedent competency that went 
forth to conceive or achieve it. And, therefore, if 
the antecedent motives, reasons, ends, etc., were 
likewise achieved by, and for, the same agent, and 
no matter for what intent, how can the subsequent 
ones, similarly achieved, and for any purpose, but 
here taken as results from the previous elaboration, 
conflict in any wise with voluntary determinations, 
of which they were part and parcel ? 

You apprehend that I am denying that a law for 
material causation can, at all, apply to a discursive 
competency which underlies and informs every act 
of choice, conceiving and accomplishing what it 
conceives. But this it could not do, if a law for 



256 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

material causation which claims that "what is 
caused is necessitated," could foist itself into the 
body and soul of discursion and supplant or sup- 
press its intelligent procedures. 

The act of thinking is the life of mind, and every 
such act involves the unbroken continuity and 
identity of that life in every stage of conception 
and action. And, therefore, is it that mind is a 
ceaseless discursive flow of free antecedents and con- 
sequents. Its condition, at any one instant, is a free 
achievement in the present projected from a free 
achievement gone upon in the previous instant, and 
so on, back to the first thought ; a preceding achieve- 
ment ever combining with and establishing a sub- 
sequent one, without the possibility of a split in the 
discursive fusion, or a break in the continuity. And 
if this is a true psychology of the mental transfor- 
mations resorted to, we have here an irreducible 
unit of discursive power and personal responsibility 
running back to the beginnings of thought. 

And therefore, I lay down the following propo- 
sition, as incontrovertible: Man's freedom lies in 
the sturdy continuity of his discursive methods, 
whereby thought, at each instant, renews and founds 
on the competency it had reached in the previous, 
indivisible instant. And therefore, and in this re- 
gard, conception and choice, viewed even as results 
from previous thoughts, are different from all other 
results, seeing that they are a continuous renewal 
and reassertion of the power that achieved them, 
and not simply receptive of that power, after the 
manner of results determined by an exterior power. 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 257 



And now I shall ask logicians to make room for 
another fact. 

It is known that each man for himself believes 
that he determines his own acts freely. Shall an 
antiquated syllogism which avers that, whatever is 
caused, is necessitated, be permitted any longer to 
nullify a rational, universal, and constant deliver- 
ance of thought, that man everywhere, and under 
all circumstances, believes he is free and acts upon 
his belief ? Observe that this conviction is fortified 
by the undogmatic and non-speculative character of 
the testimony. It is also further strengthened by 
the fact that the witnesses affirm their conviction 
with one accord, and without previous concert, or 
collusive advisement. Besides, the belief is alike 
individual, universal, and constant, in the sense that 
all the individuals who constitute the universal, at 
all times, and under all circumstances, persist in 
affirming this belief, none denying it, and none 
capable of denying it, at least, so long as man 
thinks and acts for himself. Could any fact be 
more firmly grounded on evidence ? 

We are told, though, that such belief, however 
honestly held, is untutored, illogical, and not to be 
trusted. Of course, we are thankful that all men, 
under all circumstances, as long as we can think 
and act for ourselves on reasons of conscious knowl- 
edge and evidence, can persist in honestly entertain- 
ing a stupid belief in the teeth of such logical 
teachers. However, if the logic of the evidence is 



258 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

irresistible, no wonder we all have the stupid belief. 
We can honestly believe, say our sapient logicians ! 
How exceedingly kind and patronizing are our su- 
periors ! Still, it may stretch one's sense of conven- 
tional courtesy a trifle too much to compliment a 
chimpanzee for some rudimentary conceptions of an 
honest, but pitifully illogical sort. However, the 
chimpanzee has never been taught of the exotic lore 
of formal logic, any more than all men. 

But if all men, at all times, and under all circum- 
stances, will still persist in maintaining a stupid 
belief, even after a so-called logical disproof of it, 
how could it be possible for any set of men, with 
such hopelessly stolid and illogical antecedents, 
ever to acquire such knowledge of formal logic as 
to divine what it is to be either logical or illogical ? 

Voluntary freedom is either a discovery at first 
hand or an inference from one. We judge it on 
informations consciously affirmed and carried for- 
ward into acts ; and if all men affirm these in- 
formations, they are affirming voluntary powers, 
consciously cognitive and, therefore, personal and 
free. Indeed, if it were so that we had no knowl- 
edge of our own powers, but could reason, as we 
now do, about the actions of other animate creat- 
ures, we should be led, logically, and correctly, to 
infer that they were free to the full extent of their 
mental capacities. 

Formal logic, if true to reason and the evidence, 
is, and can be, nothing but the statement of, say, 
the informal cognitions and affirmations, on evi- 
dence that justified and built up the individual and 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 259 

universal conviction of human freedom. For such 
a conviction is attested in affirming every thought 
and every achievement of thought. In fact, if any 
belief can be affirmed as true, because affirmed in 
achieving and affirming our every thought, the be- 
lief that we are free to think and act for ourselves, 
in defiance of the law for material causation, must be 
accepted as logically validated, on incontrovertible 
evidence. 

If there be such a measure of gullibility and fal- 
lacy in this belief of volitional freedom, let our 
logicians prove either an incorrigible imbecility, or 
else utter recklessness on the part of all men in 
respect of the laws of their own thinking. But if 
we all say that we are free, — spelling out, in all 
literalness, our conscious thoughts and acts, — an 
informal but fundamental logic, veraciously accred- 
ited beyond the possibility of doubt, will affirm our 
freedom from what we affirm in every thought, and 
every phase of thought. 

We are not to deny that there are many foolish 
beliefs; some anthropomorphic, some naturalistic, 
and some material. Explaining nature too literally 
from the standpoint of consciousness, we have feti- 
chism. Explaining man in terms of external nature, 
we have atheism, materialism, and bad logic. Both 
issue in myth. The former is the first rude attempt, 
among uncivilized peoples, to reduce the chaos of 
facts observed in the material world to some rational 
coherence. The latter is a later stage of this sys- 
temizing tendency, but put forth to correct the dis- 
mal follies of the former. Indeed, some eminent 



260 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

scientists are even now prating glibly of Darwinian 
theories which, work forward under the guidance of 
laws which know not a lawgiver. 

And here, I would explain that mere science, 
authority, antiquity, etc., are no conclusive proof 
of any theory which conflicts with belief in any 
fact at first hand ; to say nothing of a belief con- 
sciously affirmed in affirming anything, from a dis- 
cursive fact within us to any theory, true, or false. 
For, although men have given way to sundry base- 
less beliefs, and have stoutly maintained them for 
ages unnumbered, still, after all that is said, we do 
not find that all men, at any time, have given way 
to any theory at war with their belief in the fact 
that they are free to determine their own acts. 
For a fact, thus consciously affirmed, can never be 
disturbed by any amount of theorizing about it. 
Indeed, such a universal belief, so avouched for all 
men under all circumstances, must be consistent 
with every belief similarly avouched, and whether 
of mind or matter, as I have endeavored to explain 
in preceding paragraphs. And, as to this particu- 
lar belief in man's freedom, no theory of necessity 
founded on mechanical causation is at all appli- 
cable to a power which determines choice by dis- 
cursive methods and considerations for which men 
universally hold themselves responsible. 

We have no right to take either mind or matter, 
thought or sensation, and construct a theory at war 
with the facts of either. We are not permitted to 
tamper with our facts. 

We must allow for the diversely appointed and 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 261 

restricted powers of self and not self, if we are to 
preserve the purity and individuality of their social 
intercourse intact. Truth is never to be had by 
disregarding the laws which prescribe and restrict 
the interaction of entities diversely empowered and 
individualized. 

If you interview matter, you will remark the 
molecular ring of mechanical transformations issu- 
ing from its very pores. On the other hand, if you 
could but touch pure intellect, you would possibly 
observe nothing but a gleam of light, pale, pulse- 
less, and chilly cold, streaming forth from the tips 
of your fingers. But man is more than sheerly 
intelligent ; and so if you interview him, you will 
discover life, individuality, and personal responsi- 
bility, — a discursive energy, innovating, thoughtful, 
conative, — burning with voluntary impulsions and 
humanities as bright as his intelligence. Thus far, 
we are dealing with the facts of matter and mind. 

Now, what shall we say of logicians who would 
give us truth by a mere formal arrangement of 
words so devised that such facts as our conscious 
affirmations disclose are either cast away, or driven 
to the wall. 

The logic is with the facts, and not with the 
select few who propound premises with the facts 
of our conscious affirmations left out. And yet, if 
the select few have been all their lives, and are 
even now, indulging a silly belief of their freedom, 
they have a poor way of backing their qualifica- 
tions for reforming that, or any other, belief. 

However, to be fair, I offer them the benefit of a 



262 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

formal syllogism which will cover their distrust of 
the informal logic of all men. 

4. Whoever habitually thinks, and acts on the 
belief, that he is free, has no conception of the 
logical connection between the power of thought 
and free determination. 

All men so think and act, and that habitually. 
They have, therefore, no conception of the logical 
connection between the power of thought and free 
determination. 

It is pleasant to hope that such a syllogism will 
allay any distrust of my absolute fairness in deal- 
ing with the theoretical and formalizing logicians. 
Still, one could wish them to give one the logic 
of incontrovertible facts ; for every other kind is 
chimerical. 

But let me now contrast this mendacious syllogism 
with one which will have a due regard for the facts. 

5. A conviction affirmed in affirming every 
thought and every act of thought is the one true 
fact of the logical understanding, — equally individ- 
ual, universal, authoritative, and incontrovertible. 
The fact that we are free is so affirmed. It is, 
therefore, the one true fact of the logical under- 
standing, — equally individual, universal, authorita- 
tive, and incontrovertible. 

XI 

I recall, in passing, a point or two touched upon 
in previous connections. 

A prevalent error is to regard the alternatives 
in choice as a conflict of independent and distinct 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 263 

forces struggling for supremacy over the will as 
a something objectively distinct from themselves. 
Whereas, as a matter of fact, they have no power 
of themselves, but are what they are as our di- 
versely appointed conceptions struggling toward 
that ultimate form which is reached in volition, 
will, choice, personal preference, as it is variously 
phrased. It is to be remembered that we have, 
here, a personal agent who conceives the alterna- 
tives, walking with such motives, purposes, desires, 
etc., as he can prefer and make his own, and finally 
acting upon that select conception which explodes 
in fulfilled desire, or responsible choice, as I have 
so often explained. 

XII 

In this section, I propose to offer some specula- 
tions upon the problem of ancestral heredity, and 
its power to enfold our future in a germ cell, which, 
it is alleged, predetermines choice. 

What, then, shall we say of such a power, stored 
up in a germ cell ? Well, for my part, so long as 
it gives us an express individuality of our own, I 
would not have one bit of it expurgated, for my ben- 
efit. Let it severely alone, as long as it is not some 
blighting abnormality. For, speaking generally, 
and after allowing for all manner of differences, I 
am unable to see, how such a cell has any more 
power to cripple choice with predetermination than 
any ordinary sensation, climatic conditions, or 
wide vistas of mountain and valley, or even the 
cult of peoples with whom we live, etc., etc. There 



264 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

is, to be sure, quite a wide diversity of effects pro- 
duced by these diverse agencies, but the make-up 
of individual choice is not robbed of one iota of its 
prerogatives. Every exterior power has a distinct 
office to perforin, in respect of thought, but none 
can disturb the right of choice, under normal con- 
ditions. Give each man the proper humanities of 
the race, and you have race responsibility, normal 
experiences, alternative choice, free determinations 
and morals. 

But I am not now committed to the task of say- 
ing any more on that aspect of the subject. The 
point to be investigated is the relation of the 
present self and its present powers to the predeter- 
minant powers of the germ cell. 

And here let me say, that any amount or quality 
of power packed away in a germ cell, that goes 
only to the birth, being, and capabilities of the 
individual, is simply an ordinance of God, in accord- 
ance with which such an individual must walk, in 
order to be free and without which a free choice 
would be a failure. And this is as far as any germ 
cell can go. It gives us an individual being, and 
remits us to an individual choice ; that is all. 

But then, says an objector, this your germ coll, 
walking so innocently before your sweet individu- 
ality, is charged with the virus of innumerable 
other germ cells, coming down from the remote 
past, and piling upon you a huge mass of predeter- 
mining influences which you cannot away with. 

Very correct, and cheerfully conceded is all this 
talk about one's ancestors ; and you must not sup- 



ALTEENATIVE CHOICE 265 

pose that we could wish, to part company from them. 
The man's individuality and responsibility, — his 
power of thought and choice, for all that, is left 
intact. And no amount and no strength of an 
ancestral germ cell can determine anything for him 
contrary to a present act of thought, or choice. 
The power of thought never lets up in the presence 
of any genetic force, so long as the man's proper 
humanities and individuality are not evicted. 

XIII 

I conclude with some detached observations 
bearing upon the problems remarked upon in the 
immediately preceding sections. Choice is deter- 
mined by motives, qualitatively appointed for going 
upon a final act. But, strictly speaking, a motive 
is an end or purpose conceived in order to choice. 
And, therefore, choice implies a searching, prepar- 
atory study of all the problems which bear upon 
our personal responsibility for what we are about 
to do, as well as also final consent and conation. 
Hence, the problem of volition must forever rest 
upon the view we can take of our personal well- 
being and responsibility ; a careful allowance being 
made for exterior potencies, present or antecedent, 
whose presence and power we may by no means 
ignore. 

We are not omniscient, but, though finite, we 
hold ourselves responsible for what we do, often 
blundering on the way to our objective purpose. 
Still, if we are really doing our best to reach some 
conclusion upon which we may be free to act by 



266 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

right of the conceptive power of our own thoughts, 
that is to say, by the power of choice or a prevail- 
ing reason, we have not striven in vain. We are 
simply doing our best, under our finite conditions 
and limitations and in our various callings, to bring 
our best thought and experience to bear upon the 
problems of life, and in pursuance of those loftier 
ambitions which are denied to orders of intelligence 
Avhere thought and animal impulse are more at one. 

The process is an act of attention, deliberation, 
and comparison, whereby a conception of alterna- 
tives and a judgment on their contrasting preten- 
sions clears the way to a final eligible conception 
which we call our choice. 

And having thus discovered a conception ade- 
quate to the demands of choice and personal respon- 
sibility, we set this conception forward upon our 
contemplated work ; for thought not only illumines 
our path, but directs, decides, and completes our 
purposed tasks. 

Finally, analyze thought as we may, there is still 
left over a vast residuum of ever present conditions, 
such as sensations, dispositions, mental, moral, and 
physical endowments, heredity, environment, etc., 
etc., whose office, as heretofore explained, is to give 
thought the competency and opportunity to con- 
ceive a line of action for itself within the limitations 
fixed by said conditions. And as thus limited, its 
essential prerogatives, as a rational, volitional, and 
responsible cause, are no more infringed upon than 
those of matter and even God (be they what they 
may) are infringed upon by conditions and limita- 



ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 267 

tions which prescribe and qualify a mode of being 
and activity for them. For, beyond the special 
nature, or strictly inner life of anything, there is 
an infinite number of other entities, with diversely 
qualified functions and powers, whose presence and 
role of action thought can by no means overlook, 
but which, for their part, can by no means do, or 
undo, what is the office of thought to do. 

Moreover, though thought must depend upon its 
conditions, surroundings, etc., these can never ex- 
plain choice, whatever may be their office. For 
thought has a character and competency, peculiar 
to itself; even as the thronging potencies which 
confront it on every side have what is individual 
to themselves. But to say that either the one or 
the other can step beyond his natural province, 
and, under the usual conditions of action and inter- 
action, supplant or suppress the distinctive indi- 
viduality of the other, is not only unphilosophical 
and unpsychological, but utterly recalcitrant to any 
scheme of reason which would provide for, and 
conserve, the action and interaction of the two. 



CHAPTER XXI 

Ourself on Soul 

We have life and thought compacted together, in 
a variety of ways, by the bond of personal interest 
in all we do, securing thus a casting vote without 
schism among the parts. We never see life as an 
undifferentiated integer. It is ever a memberment 
of parts cooperating as contributory factors in sub- 
ordination to a central whole. I refer to that power 
which, whilst securing a regulated concert of action 
among the parts, perfectly conserves their diverse 
functions. Life is memberment, plus a central 
authority which is single, personal, and supreme 
over all the parts. It has no expression, no mean- 
ing, no existence even, — except as thus rendered. 



It is objected, however, that there is no proof of 
this unit of power within experience and observa- 
tion. " How know we it ? All we know is sensa- 
tions," etc. On the other hand, I contend that the 
proof is through experience and observation; that 
all our experiences, even that of a sensation, are 
discursive achievements depending on some power 
of mind to judge and avouch what we observe. 

A sensation is known, and can be known, only 
by the marks that accredit it. All knowledge 
268 



OURSELF OR SOUL 269 

founds on the same power, namely, that which 
achieves the idea of a sensation, emotion, relation, 
or anything else, and discriminates one idea or 
object from another. It comes of the heaven-born 
ability to judge and distinguish by traits, or marks 
which identify objects of knowledge. In other 
language, we infer life, cause, soul, etc., even as, 
from a perturbation in the sensorium, we conclude 
that it is a sensation, and not a cognition, — a some- 
thing which is not an act of the power that under- 
takes to know it. Indeed, we verify everything, 
just as we prove the existence of our neighbors, by 
the unanswerable logic of their footprints, or other 
marks of life and thought. 

Eemarking now, more particularly, upon the 
evidences for ourself or soul, I note that the infer- 
ence is not locally remote, like many we draw. 
An immediate judgment affirms the immediate 
cause of our subjective acts; as also the Jcind of 
causes is likewise determined by an immediate 
appraisement of the character of the conceptions 
transpiring under the direct gaze of consciousness : 
just as, when our attention is directed to acts of 
right and wrong, we are remarking their contrast- 
ing values, affirming and appraising, at one and 
the same time, and equally, acts and their kind or 
character, — of course somewhat vaguely, but still 
intelligently, upon our first intercourse with such 
facts. And similarly, whenever we are regarding 
the acts of a subjective cause, we are affirming 
ourselves as their conscious cause. 

For consciousness implies a conscious actor, 



270 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

solely because, in conscious acting, we are the con- 
scious actor; the judgment embracing and affirm- 
ing simultaneously one as much as the other. 

Here I may explain that what we are affirming 
is an action and an actor given in a concrete presen- 
tation, the judgment avouching both simultaneously 
and directly, and therefore the affirmation of both 
is instantaneous, for you cannot affirm an action 
severed from an actor. And this is emphatically 
true of conscious thinking, the affirmation of which 
involves the coetaneous affirmation of a conscious 
thinker or soul. 

But for that matter, how could one affirm any- 
thing without, then and there, affirming himself as 
the affirmer. Besides, there can be no difference 
in affirming an act of mind and affirming mind as 
an actor. 

The reader need not be reminded that the discur- 
sive acts just mentioned are, for the most part, but 
the beginnings of thought. But though it proceeds 
from a present, conscious, mental act, seen (at first) 
in the concrete as an indivisible part, to the actor 
seen as its counterpart, it advances from the attri- 
butes immediately affirmed to the remoter things 
which manifest them, and from things to a coordina- 
tion of their statics and dynamics, reaching finally 
a clear conception of the personal and moral prob- 
lems suggested by such fruitful discoveries. 

II 

And so, we conceive ourselves to be what our 
acts indicate, — nothing beyond. I am aware of a 



OURSELF OR SOUL 271 

prevalent illusion which bids us find something 
distinct from the mind and its phenomenal mani- 
festations ; a something outside of what we know of 
the mind as a self-conscious activity; a substratum 
or essence, in which the mind, and its powers, 
inhere. But this is a plunge into an abyss utterly 
void of any tangible support. I know nothing, and 
can say nothing, of such an essence. All I can 
affirm is some really existing thing, such as mind 
or matter ; and I can know it only by what it is 
and does. 

As an activity, mind must work as it knows. It 
cannot grapple with its work without the power of 
some thought enlisted in its performance. But the 
soul cannot be said to be present as a free cause, or 
personal and responsible unit of action, until we 
have the aims which come of an intelligent devel- 
opment of our discursive possibilities. It must, 
once for all, be born. We must have command of 
all our cognitive resources. Neither the will, nor 
any act for which we are responsible, can come 
sauntering into notice, unbidden of the soul. And, 
though we may rightly regard the will, emotions, 
desires, etc., as indispensable forces, at our service, 
yet the real efficiency is with the rational unit, or 
responsible soul. Forasmuch, then, as these are 
our instrumental forces, we ourself, as differenti- 
ated by organs, capacities, etc., determine our con- 
duct through them. Upon us is laid the burden of 
conceptive power, — not upon them, — and we alone 
are responsible for the manner in which that power 
is employed. 



272 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

You remark that the moral unit does not take 
the character of a pronounced, personal cause, until 
it has carefully cleared the way to a mature re- 
sponsibility for its acts. It has to await the occa- 
sion of its discovery and appreciation of moral 
distinctions and needs, ere it can act on them. In 
order to the empire of mind and morals, it must 
have acquired the ideas of right and wrong, good 
and bad, mine and thine, duty, obligation, etc., 
upon which to found an adequate conception of 
itself as a power, single, personal, and responsible. 
Otherwise how could the variant hopes and fears, 
joys and sorrows, aims, anxieties, and bothers of 
life, be combined, and not antagonized, in conduct? 
Moreover, though we might acquire all knowledge, 
yet, if we could not employ it as an innovating, 
reconstructive power for our own good or bad, we 
could never build up acts for which we are indi- 
vidually and personally responsible, and so could 
not be ourself . 

Ill 

The will in particular, as tested by these con- 
siderations, is simply the force of our final concep- 
tion, or if you prefer, the force of our final reason 
or judgment. For, what one does by any of his 
members, he does himself. If he is only medita- 
tive, he does that work; if purposing, that work; 
if acting or willing, that work. 

It seems plain, therefore, that, when we affirm 
ourself, or ego, or soul, or person, as the doer of 
an act, we are affirming a unit of power that carries 



OURSELF OR SOUL 273 

the force of our convictions into what we do. Now 
the will, viewed as our executive power, is but our- 
self going along with our most urgent reasons. For 
we cannot be personally responsible for either will 
or reasons, emotions or desires, or anything mental 
or moral, which undertakes to do duty as an outside 
factor. And so, it all comes to this, that the man 
himself, as rational and responsible, acquires and 
wields a power he has acquired in acquiring his 
informations. And, therefore, have we a personal 
power which takes character from the grade of our 
mental and moral distinctions ; and we advance in 
power, pari passu with every advance in knowledge. 

IV 

Holding these views, I venture a version of 
what transpires in an act of free determination in 
accordance with my theory of discovering power as 
we discover knowledge. 

My first remark is that there is no call for any 
of our psychical members to be free. Are any 
of them responsible? As previously suggested, 
motives or reasons, and the will, are not to be 
regarded as competing for supremacy in acts of 
choice. Man's motives, even emotions, desires, 
and the will, are his own by reason of the acts of 
exploration and discovery which made them his, 
just as his will is his own rational impulse, because 
born with and part of the informations he acquires. 

There is no segregated action of motives upon 
the will, much less can the will be disjoined from 
motives or informations and left to work up for 



274 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

itself an executive power, personal and voluntary. 
Man is a sole energy in all he does, acquiring, and 
having full command of, every information whose 
final stringency is utilized in the crisis of responsi- 
ble performance. A sane man cannot do anything 
without a sufficiently strong reason for what he 
does. 

The story is the same in whatever way we may 
handle the facts before us. The soul is the rational 
centre for both thought and act. The organs and 
capacities are our own. Thought gives power. 
But the doing of anything, in any way, does not 
alter the essential fact that we do it ours elf, on 
deliberation and responsible choice. For, when- 
ever we act, we unite, adjust, and direct our every 
spiritual member to secure those conjoint results 
known as our deeds or works. We do it all. 

Our personal power is as distinctly seen in one 
act as in another; in the most ordinary, as in the 
most complicated act of reasoning; in what is 
simply tentative and preliminary, as in that last, 
grim nisus, or effort, which delivers the works of 
our hands. For whilst our members have no action 
of their own, certainly none exterior to, and causa- 
tive of, the unitary power which combines and 
controls their action, they act ever in concert and 
subordination, as social factors under charge of the 
above unitary power. 

You see that we are regarding our spiritual 
organism as differentiated by a variety of social 
members under the control of a responsible factor 
which acts with undivided sovereignty in the sphere 



OURSELF OR SOUL 275 

of thought and deed, and is therefore responsible 
for both. 

Now, the logic of the situation would be wholly 
changed, if the parts could act independently. On 
that supposition, we should have thought without 
our thinking; will, purpose, choice, conduct, char- 
acter, etc., without our being in either one or the 
other. Besides, if we regard our psychical mem- 
bers as acting independently of each other, we 
should invoke another batch of absurdities, such as 
perception, without conception, and vice versa; or 
information, without desire or emotion; or choice, 
without any logical elaboration, or ultimating 
reason of our own; and so on, to the end. 

The fact of the unitary power of the mind stands 
firm against all criticism. It is seen that neither 
severalty nor schism is allowed among the psychi- 
cal members. Each yields a distinct, but regulated, 
social service to the federal head. And the latter, 
in turn, enforces a guarded responsibility by a 
thoughtful employment of the subordinate instru- 
mentalities. 

A supreme ruler, we are not dependent on the 
will, or any subservient member, for any help 
exterior to our authority. An autocrat, with an 
individuality and domestic economy of our own, 
we act on judgment and personal responsibility; 
never permitting our subordinates to step out of 
the line of subservience to our behests and set 
up superserviceable actions of their own, lest we 
invite the instant subversion of our discursive 
individuality. 



276 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 



My debate will conclude with a synopsis of pre- 
ceding views. 

Our soul is a unit of functions, each of which 
contributes a scheme of service called forth at the 
command of the former, and without a trace of 
extraneous, or otherwise intrusive, action on their 
part. For, whatever be their role of action, it is 
but the action of the soul, when employed in 
rational work. 

Neither the will, nor motives or reasons, nor 
emotions and desires, can perform the office of a 
supreme, personal functionary. Our freedom can- 
not recognize the action of factors partitively 
pushing their way into independent results. 

We must act as persons, personally responsible 
for our acts. Our psychical forces are but con- 
stituent elements of a discursive energy which 
undertakes to know, and then acts as it knows. 
What we call the will, for example, is but the 
force of our decisive thought, and, therefore, a 
power of our own. 

Grant me thought, and I have its power or 
urgency, and this same urgency is my personal 
power or will, going into all I do. Our thought, 
with its executive power, — called emotion or desire, 
in reference to the instructed soul or person ; called 
the will, when referring more directly to our execu- 
tive, or ultimating power, — is, therefore, our sole 
efficiency in responsible conduct. 



CHAPTER XXII 

Review of the Argument 

Thought affirms an object and points out some 
of its attributes, namely, some of its statics and 
dynamics, and their phenomenal relations, indi- 
vidual or social. And, therefore, it affirms some 
real things, — not phantoms, — and not merely 
matter, but the realities of its own activities as 
well. 

It is powerless to affirm a nonentity; for the 
latter is neither reality nor attributes. Nor can it 
affirm chaos ; for that has no principle of being or 
action, and so neither substance nor attributes, 
and, therefore also, no points of connection or 
relation with either thought or things. 



But in virtue of its contact with its sensor 
organs, mind becomes conscious of a non-conscious 
excitation in the sensorium. Now it is this excita- 
tion, or sensation, that the mind first feels in vague, 
unripe cognition, and afterward perceives in clearer 
cognition ; and this is all it does perceive in sensi- 
ble perception. The sensation is immediately pre- 
sented to the mind, and the latter immediately 
perceives it; achieving thus the naked idea of a 
non-conscious energy acting on itself. For I take 
277 



278 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

perception to be the readiest cognition of some- 
thing whose features, or detailed individual attri- 
butes, have not then been, or else need not be, 
carefully abstracted and accredited, on reflection 
and logical elaboration. In fact, at the stage of 
perception, the soul does not feel committed to the 
task of affirming or denying any details, with par- 
ticular care. It simply beholds a something which 
is not itself, and which it can so affirm. But, as 
soon. as it can detach and study characteristic feat- 
ures, it is on the point of mediating and correlating 
remoter and broader ideas, by means of conception 
and logic. 

Perceptive knowledge is relatively limited, the 
mind not having certified anything beyond a con- 
crete impression in the sensorium, exterior to itself, 
and so not having any rational conceptions; and 
since it has not attained to a view of objects, as 
founded on laws, forms, changes, features, and the 
unalterable relationships which bind each of them, 
as a part of knowledge to the whole which includes 
the assemblage of characteristic features, — since 
it has not done this, it does not have such a knowl- 
edge of itself and other things, as will enable it to 
elicit a conception of its own wants, and to act 
accordingly. 

On the contrary, the office of conception is to 
ponder the ideas reached by perception, compare 
notes with the attributes of objects and elicit their 
logical affiliations. It begins an active exploration 
of such objects as it perceives, fixing attention on, 
say, some particular kind of energy and tracing it 



REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 279 

back to some outer or inner potency, or else con- 
trasting one attribute with another, or with others, 
— or with ideas and emotions; or else discriminat- 
ing it as voluntary from a non-voluntary activity, 
and so on, until it has mastered the facts and 
principles upon which it can act as a responsible 
person. But I may not go into further details in 
this place. 

II 

Man is a personal power, taking a personal 
interest in all that transpires within the jourview 
of his thoughts. His feelings are enlisted. He is 
now a person. 

Hence arise various emotions, answering to the 
diverse character of his informations. He may 
have attained to aesthetic and moral conceptions. 
If so, his personal interest will be manifested by 
emotions which will express their character and 
power. For one must have acquired the ideas of 
the true, the beautiful, the sublime, — the good and 
bad, right and wrong, — ere the attaching interest 
can report itself emotionally. 

And he is the more impressively emotioned, 
because, being human, he comes to know that he 
has secured these personal motors through the 
watchful interest he takes in constructing a life 
of rational impulsions and satisfactions. 

Eemark distinctly that, when our emotions found 
on conceptions of moral good and evil, any power 
they may have over conduct is perfectly consistent 
with our personal freedom, and this for the plain 



280 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

reason that all our higher emotions are called forth 
by some fact, sought out of the mind, which deter- 
mines their being and mission. 

" The hidden man of the heart " is, in fact, never 
hidden from the power of mind. We may go off 
into wild ways when led by vile emotions. This 
is part of the dowery of freedom. But it does not 
change the dependence of emotion on thought. The 
latter may be as wild as the dependent emotions, 
and still direct them. Whenever we come to 
ourselves, like the prodigal son, we have simply 
returned to a previous condition of mind and 
morals wherein we could think differently and 
determine our emotions accordingly. We may 
review and amend our ways, on occasion of a 
sufficient experience of the penalties inflicted for 
moral dereliction. For when one's views change, 
his emotions change with them. 

Ill 

In foregoing discussions it was shown that, by 
cultivating his powers, man walks as a differenti- 
ated and conscious integer, having power to liberate 
an executive energy which goes into his work or 
conduct. I would now retouch this discussion, for 
reasons of clearer perceptive — if indeed our free- 
dom is not an illusion. 

Be that as it may, it does not consist in any 
efficiency separate from that of thought. It is 
not to be found in the will, viewed as an indepen- 
dent, self-acting, free cause. But it is in the ego, 
or responsible soul, freely acquiring knowledge, 



REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 281 

and freely using its power in matters of choice 
and responsible determinations. 

But, as a striking feature in the conception and 
choice of work is the display of sufficient power to 
do the work, philosophers seem agreed to call that 
power the will in distinction from other mental 
powers, — many holding that it steps in at the 
opportune moment, and somehow or other, makes 
us free by an impulse of its own, even in the pres- 
ence of our decisive reasons. 

To all which the facts elicited in past discussions 
give ample denial. There is no such thing as the 
will acting upon or for the man, or upon or for his 
reasons, and imparting to either, or both, a volun- 
tary efficiency not already theirs. The man him- 
self, as rational, controls himself by the power of 
his reasons, effectuating choice by the conscious 
employment of the power of his ideas in all he 
does. The man thinks, and wills, as he thinks. 
For doing at will, or by the will, is doing as one 
thinks or opines; accomplishing in act or deed 
that, for the doing of which, his informations have 
furnished him the requisite power, — the result 
being that, in all he does, man is impelled by his 
strongest reason, and can never, at all, act with- 
out it. 

Another point previously made may be adverted 
to in this connection. It is to this effect, that, 
as man cannot perform a work by simply getting 
ready for it, he must find some way of giving 
finality to his opinions, or reasons. An opinion 
whose force is smuggled out of the way in the 



282 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

crisis of performance, does not possess the re- 
quired efficiency. Besides, it must have a pur- 
posed, practical stringency, if the thinker is to 
be charged with personal responsibility for his 
act. 

An inexorable code of reason requires us to 
excogitate some power of thought which will do 
our work, and show us when to do it, in order to 
our having any intelligent command of the reasons 
why we should be charged with doing it. For, if 
we do a work by conceptive power, we know it is 
ours by a power of our own. 

I confess to some anxiety to give these distinc- 
tions in clearest outline. I am holding to the view 
that man is competently equipped for acquiring 
knowledge, and making use of its power, in his 
acts. In virtue of the fact that he is a unit of 
body and mind, he has command of the resources 
of both. And, in virtue of his preeminent capacity 
for discursion, and in behalf of the susceptibilities 
which he cultivates and makes use of, he advances 
upon the worlds of mind and matter, and wins from 
them a wide range of unwonted transformations, 
due solely to the force and dignity of his cogni- 
tions. In other words, he is an innovator, — a 
setter-up of a strange power, affronting and 
remodelling the unchanging use and wont pre- 
vailing in the world of material causes and 
sequences. And he does it all by employing a 
power which is born with his thoughts. The force 
of his thoughts, or reasons, is his sole efficient in 
what lie does. 



REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 283 



IV 

Turning now, for a moment, to a more articulate 
treatment of the function of reasons, informations, 
etc., we are to regard them as man's all-sufficient 
resources in the work of his hand; finalizing his 
thoughts, in finalizing his work. And, whatever 
impelling force they may have is his own ; the fact 
of his achieving and employing them constituting 
him a free agent, and personally responsible for 
his acts. He himself is ever in, and with them, 
either as a discursive presence remarking their 
special characters, and discriminating their social 
affiliations, or else actively choosing them, in some 
final procedure. 

Let me hope that the following incident may 
serve to make this securely plain : I see one ford- 
ing a river on horseback. He is holding up his 
feet. But now, why hold them up? The reason 
is plain. He is moved by reasons, or informations, 
which will have it, that it is for his good. But, it 
is so that his feet still tip the water, and, there- 
upon, he elevates them still higher. The motive 
here is likewise manifest. He is informed of the 
unpleasant results which follow such watery indis- 
cretions, and would now protect himself from their 
recurrence. So, from every point of view, we see 
that man's actions come at the call of his reasons, 
and he always acts as they urge him, walking very 
literally "in all their commandments and ordi- 
nances," without the trace of a single deviation. 

And yet, man is a free agent, and cannot be free 



284 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

in any other way. For, as so often explained, his 
informations are his own powers, made his own by 
right of discovery and conquest, and so are not 
made over to him by any power ab extra. And, 
therefore, if they do determine his will, or acts, or 
conduct, it is his own thought that does it. He 
has been at pains to acquire, and now puts forth 
the power, thus acquired, to go upon his work, and 
do it, and so, he, alone, is responsible. No one 
can take thought of the attributes and potencies of 
things of himself and things not himself, in his 
stead, and so, no one can do for him what is per- 
sonal and responsible in his judgments of choice 
and action. And if he thinks he has a will, and 
should employ it as a subservient instrumentality 
for giving effect to his reasons, he would still 
be employing the power of his informations and 
giving them wonted sanction in conduct. 

A pertinent example will explain all this. A 
certain man has an opinion which habitually con- 
trols his conduct. Suppose, now, that a neighbor 
should attempt to give him one that he could not 
make his own, and so control his conduct differ- 
ently. Would he not literally talk out the psy- 
chological facts speaking in his soul, if lie should 
object: "This thing you propose, will never do. 
It would contravene my freedom, and make me 
your slave. If you give me your opinions, and 
deny me mine, — why, sir, I am a mere machine. 
I lose myself and personal responsibility besides, 
when I lose my own opinions. You think to give 
me your opinions, and make them mine, but if I 



REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 285 

cannot have my own, and give them full play and 
power, in the determination of my own conduct, 
you fracture that organic oneness of soul, by which 
it is possible for me alone to determine my conduct 
and responsibility in their untrammelled correla- 
tions. I cannot afford to vacate my freedom and 
personal identity at one and the same time. I 
dance to my own piping in the affairs of thought 
arjjl conduct. My opinion is mine; your opinion 
is yours, and away with it. " 

This language wears the air of an indignant chal- 
lenge, and rightly, because it is a defence of perso- 
nal right and competency. You observe that the 
speaker plants his freedom on his own opinions. 
He has no quarrel with that. But he protests 
vigorously against its being founded on opinions 
not his own. He must have his own way of solv- 
ing the problems of life, and so hold himself, and 
not his neighbor, responsible for his conduct. 
And, therefore again, I conclude that a man stands 
as his thoughts stand, acting only as he is in- 
formed and impelled by them, and that, whatever 
he may do, and with whatever instrumentality, — • 
be it emotion, desire, or will, or even his physical 
members, so far as he can command their service, 
— the sole and indispensable efficiency resorted to 
in consummating his voluntary and responsible 
endeavors is the force of his reasons, or con- 
victions. 

One or another of us has seen or read of some- 
thing like the following: A great general matures 
his plans, marshals his forces, and tramples upon 



286 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

the columns of his enemy. A battle is fought 
and won. He had to rely on the prompt service of 
powder and ball as instrumentalities to be availed 
of in aid of his plans. But in accounting for his 
bloody laurels, it would amaze us to hear one say : 
" The powder and ball achieved the victory. " That 
would be (to use, perhaps, a familiar illustration) 
much like accounting for the production of some 
great picture, not by the esthetic and constructive 
appreciations of the painter, but by the want of 
thought in the pigments. 

Victory will forever perch upon the banner of 
the general whose power of thought conceives, and 
executes, such efficient combinations as a disci- 
plined and faithful soldiery are competent to carry 
out in practice. Powder and ball and paint are 
but matter, fundamentally remodelled of thought 
for carrying special concepts forward into con- 
ceived results. Result is victory. 

A thought, once born, halts not short of some 
achievement. And once born, it is henceforth our 
personal and responsible energy. It is renewed 
and reformed with every process of discursion. 
It is immortal. 



As constituting a feature of my discussions, I 
submit a few words upon the part played by the 
appetites, as native propensities, in relation to 
that of thought. As native forces they lend sup- 
port to our animal and vital economy, preparing 
the way for the conquests of discursion. And, so 



REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 287 

far as they are not tempered by the latter, their 
action is wholly involuntary. And yet, in time, 
they become so habitually under the latter' s charge, 
that they make only such demands as bespeak its 
responsible supervision and sanction. That is to 
say, they depend on thought for a rational instiga- 
tion. 

Allowing, then, for what is voluntary and in- 
voluntary in our nature, we may see how the 
continuity of reason is kept up; in part, by the 
persistent importunity of our animal aud vital, 
and, in part, by our mental and moral needs. 
And in this we have a way appointed, not only 
for life, but for rational work, as well. Indeed, 
thought could never, at all, enter upon its destined 
work without these unthinking, sensorial perturba- 
tions. Nor could it ever have a conception beyond 
them, save when, on occasion of their emergence, 
or that of similar sensations, it essayed the dis- 
covery of its own powers. But let an impulse be 
simply vital or animal, or mental or moral, or 
mixed, and whether the ego be ready or getting 
ready, the ideas on which we act are of our own 
procurement, and accomplish the work of our 
choice, or prevailing reason. 

VI 

Similar remarks apply to emotions and desires. 
In acts of choice, for instance, what are they but 
the personal and voluntary phase of some final 
thought which overbalances some alternative one? 
For, as previously intimated, though neither alter- 



288 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

native has any power of competition except what 
thought imparts, yet, as intelligent impulsions, 
they occupy the position of release from, or advance 
upon, our blind impulsions. Further remarks are 
reserved for the chapter on the Will. 

VII 

Similar observations obtain in the treatment of 
dispositions. In a former chapter I have shown 
how they subserve our rational ends and work. 
And here again, I repeat that we still act, as we 
are informed. 

Ponder carefully the following incident: I once 
consulted a lawyer about some land I had pur- 
chased, the title to which some other party had 
subsequently disputed. He asked me if I had made 
any promises of payment to the creditor, after the 
title had become clouded. I replied, " Certainly, if 
such a question had ever been propounded to me." 

Now, for the drift of this incident. 1. It dis- 
closes an affirmed identity of person, at two differ- 
ent periods separated by years. 2. It asserts the 
power of my dispositions (here character) over my 
conduct; otherwise I had not affirmed that I must 
have promised payment. 3. It affirms that the 
dispositions or character are an ever-present power 
for which I am responsible, as a conscious, con- 
tinuous, determinant of my actions, past or present. 

And this is plainly what is meant by one's dis- 
positions affecting one's conduct. Speaking so 
confidently of what I would have said, I must have 
known my moral character as a power over my 



REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 289 

conduct. It is to be understood, however, that 
whatever power there may be in dispositions or 
character, has been built up by dint of the informa- 
tions, that so form and transform it, that it is made 
ours in contradistinction from another's. And so, 
here too, we are beholden to reasons, ideas, infor- 
mations, etc., for conceiving and shaping character; 
giving us rational power and egoistical responsi* 
bility. 

But I call up another example to illustrate and 
support my contention. We take kindly to a child, 
let us say, because we love it. Now, it is apparent 
that, whatever may be the content of this sentiment 
it is mine, and, therefore, if moved to do the child 
a kindness, some motive of tenderness would impel 
me. But what put it into my soul, and held it 
there so stubbornly that I could so confidently and 
correctly claim it to be mine f The answer is that 
the whole past of my life has been one unending 
quest for informations, — some tender, gentle, 
affectionate, some aesthetic, some softly beautiful, 
some flower-like and bright, — and I discovered 
and fixed the sentiment forever in my soul. 

And I may say that you may take any moment 
of the past, be it away back at the beginning, and 
if it be a question how I came by either motives 
or personal character, there can be but one answer : 
Every factor that dares to control, or has controlled 
me, I made my own by the quality and power of 
my own thoughts, unless, perchance, I lost my 
personal powers and identity in the meantime. 

I notice that my remarks are becoming, more and 



290 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

more, egoistical if not egotistical. But then, there 
are reasons for this, too. For I would have it 
understood that, in rational determinations, we 
have to deal with the person, or ego, and in this 
way have every act egoistical or personal, i.e., gone 
upon for reasons of personal effort and responsi- 
bility. 

VIII 

It may, however, still be objected that whatever 
acts on the ego, must necessitate thought to that 
extent. Now, I do not controvert that view, when 
properly explicated. But it is misleading, in that 
it does not give a fair view of the prerogatives of 
thought. I admit that it takes many things to put 
a free cause in place for entering upon its discursive 
functions. And no one can object to the binding 
force of the enabling laws which support, and con- 
serve, the rational procedures, on which we are free 
to think and act. But, what is all this pre-arrange- 
ment for the necessary action of exterior things, 
upon us, but the complement of prerequisites fur- 
nished of God, in order to the incoming of our 
voluntary competencies? And why should not 
thought be informed of the presence and power of 
neighboring, and co-active, entities? What for- 
bids our having neighbors on such terms as will 
allow our being so conversant with them and their 
ways, that we may be profited by as much as we can 
discover of them and their ways? Certainly, it is 
from these thronging potencies, — thought's outside 
objects, — that we discover the very informations 



REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 291 

which fit us for dealing with them efficiently, in 
consummating all our voluntary undertakings. 

Indeed, if we are ever to have discursive liberty 
in acts, it is all in the power of thought to gain 
such knowledge of neighboring potencies, — be 
they native endowments or what not, — as will 
enable us to square our conduct by what we know 
of them. It is a question of two potencies, one 
discursive, the other material, naturalistic, or else 
animal. The former must know the powers of the 
latter, as well as those of itself, in order to the 
performance of acts in accordance with what it 
knows of both. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
A Self-acting Will 

Some philosophers deny to reason the power to 
determine the will, or acts ; seeking man's freedom 
in a self-acting will, so called. A brief examination 
will disclose the carious psychological perversions 
of this theory. 

However, if we are free through the self-action 
of the will, it may be of some interest to see how 
such action makes us free, and to connect (if we 
can) the logical conclusions with that freedom. I 
protest, though, that I regard such a will as a non- 
descript factor with which I have no acquaintance, 
— its apostles reporting its features in vaguest 
verbiage. It is to be hoped, however, that we can 
presently see how this fantastic self-action of the 
will can be got to work in the tackle of truth. 

1. I remark that if there is really no need of a 
will, taken as something distinct from the inherent 
force of our reasons, then, why should we impro- 
vise this additional factor, which claims to be not 
only distinct from the force of our thoughts, but 
self-acting ? There must be some very incoherent 
thinking on the part of one who, in constructing a 
theory to relieve us of the efficiency and sufficiency 
of motives, clutters it up with such incongruous 
and unphilosophical padding. 
292 



A SELF-ACTING WILL 293 

2. As to the fundamental facts of volition, my 
position is now perhaps so well known, that I recur 
to it only as a reminder in passing. I repeat 
that, if we would do anything, we must have a con- 
ception of the thing to be done, and then follow it 
up by a decisive reason for doing it ; and we do it 
by the power which is born with our decisive rea- 
son. This seems explicit, to a finish. 

However, it is allowable to suppose that there 
may be another force standing outside of this 
final and decisive reason. But even then, it could 
not be said to be self-acting, if it be found habitu- 
ally to conform to the appreciations of the former. 
So then, if the same potency that conceives and 
concludes to do things, in posse, instantaneously 
and actually does them, there is no more neces- 
sity for excogitating an independent and self- 
acting will than for an independent and self-acting 
memory, judgment, imagination, or divers other 
elaborative processes. Such facts as these proclaim 
the man himself, or say, in a phrase, the power of 
his thought, and nothing else, to be the sole energy 
resorted to in conception and act. 

The power of some reason determines all he 
does — a power which is not withdrawn in the 
presence of a self-acting will, if there should be 
any such. But for that matter, even if such a 
will should attempt to block the way of an energy 
so resistless as a decisive reason, the shock of the 
conflict would amount to zero, the power of reason 
forever exacting a rigorous conformity to its behests. 

3. A self-acting will cannot achieve our free- 



294 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

dom. The impossible feat would make us slaves 
to a neighboring factor, playing the role of an 
officious intermeddler. Psychology is of stubborn 
facts, not baseless surmises, otherwise we can af- 
firm, or deny, as we list, and get only rubbish for 
our pains. "It is in facts that we must seek 
general principles, and these must always accord 
with the facts," says Aristotle. 

I delay to ponder this teaching, for a moment, 
in connection with the facts of our active and 
forceful intelligence, — as seen in the power of our 
informations. Founding on reasons, consciously 
our own, we have achievements, consciously our 
own ; and if thus consciously our own, where can 
a self-acting will come in, — if at all ? An inter- 
loper is a born outsider, without knowledge and 
without its power. Moreover, if we act as we 
think, nothing can divide our responsibility, for 
we are equally and impregnably conscious of 
having won such informations as fix the value of 
our own, and others', acts, and define the confines 
of the meum and tuum of each. 

And therefore, let me insist that, if we are the 
cause of our acts through the force of our rea- 
sons, it cannot be denied that we are responsible 
for them; and that much being settled beyond 
controversy, the claims made for the non-deter- 
mination of conduct by motives or reasons must 
fall to the ground. 

So, too, we can have no need to soften down, or 
else avoid, the force of our sinful motives, lest we 
question an ordinance of God by which they act 



A SELF-ACTING WILL 295 

efficiently for our good or bad, in defiance of the 
evasive self-sufficiency of a self-acting will. The 
urgency for some clever way of relieving God of 
responsibility for sin is not so apparent just here, 
seeing we are free through a conscious achieve- 
ment of informations, consciously ours, and for 
which we are, therefore, consciously responsible. 

4. But other anomalies coming in, almost un- 
announced, may explain this pet scheme of a self- 
acting will. Though the will is put forward as a 
self-acting energy, I am inclined to opine that it is, 
nevertheless, not so. For, inasmuch as it is con- 
fessedly our will, its action must be ours also j and 
if ours, what becomes of the theory of self-action ? 

5. It must be independent, in some way or other. 
But if so, — how ? 

6. It cannot be both independent and depen- 
dent. And yet, it is both. For, whereas they 
dogmatically asseverate its self-action, they never- 
theless argue that this self-action must, in some 
way, be man's ; and if so, it is a dependent energy. 

7. If it is either singly, then the other is a 
myth. But query, which of the two is non- 
mythical ? 

8. If you destroy a self-acting will, the theory 
falls to pieces, and nobody is hurt. For man may 
yet be free through the constructive might of his 
intellections. 

Contrariwise, if you destroy our will as our own 
conscious energy going into acts of conduct and 
choice, then you are in this position : You have de- 
stroyed that power in thoughts by which you have 



296 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

any choice or preference in acts, and have no power 
henceforth even to conceive how a self-acting will 
can make over to you a conscious achievement of 
your own. 

We must have a will of our own for our own 
action. The theory for any action extraneous to 
the power of thought is untenable. 

9. If the will is to be made self-acting, and so 
can act from its own centre, in order to free it from 
the power of motives or reasons, then the man him- 
self is not free. For moral rectitude and wrong 
depend on right and wrong motives. 

10. And furthermore, if it is self-acting, and so 
can act independently, whence comes the turpitude 
of our acts ? Especially, how can man sin, when, 
though he may feel his sinful motives much as one 
feels a sensation, the power to employ them in con- 
duct remains with a self-acting will, beyond his 
control ? 

11. Or, as a possible alternative, do motives, after 
all, really influence the will ? But if so, what be- 
comes of the surplus and extraneous factor of its 
self-action ? 

12. As man is free (let us concede) not through 
the efficiency of his thought, but in virtue of a self- 
acting will, it is in fact not he that is free, but 
really and only his self-acting will. And so, we 
have again the same old, redoubtable anomaly that, 
whilst he, for his part, has no power of thought for 
his determinations, the self-acting will, being, for 
its part, the real efficient in conduct, alone is the 
author of sin, and the man himself is guiltless. 



A SELF-ACTING WILL 297 

But, if such a will can exploit this unconditioned 
fencing, then we have, on the one hand, man with 
a moral spontaneity, fitted for choice, and open to 
sin, but powerless for its commission, — because he 
cannot determine his way either to or from it. 
And so, on the other hand, we have God creating a 
being who can have sinful desires and cherish them, 
too (which is sin) ; and the man himself, — sinful 
though he be, — improvising an irresponsible factor 
of self-action to relieve his Creator, at the expense 
of his own freedom ; and worse, the creature mak- 
ing himself and his Creator equally ridiculous by 
a theory which, besides being a failure, belittles 
and besmirches both. 

13. As a self-acting will determines actions for 
itself (lest otherwise motives might determine 
man's actions), then, however much it may be ac- 
quainted with sin, it is nevertheless irresponsible. 
Divorcing itself from motives, it is in the condition 
of an idiot who knows of none to be divorced from. 

14. I may mention another curious consequence 
resulting from this mistaken analysis of the facts 
of volition. Inasmuch as by this theory (see pre- 
vious paragraphs) a man's reasons cannot determine 
his acts, he cannot, for that reason, be held respon- 
sible for them. Still, as they are determined by 
his vicar (the supposed self-acting will), notwith- 
standing the contradiction which is a perquisite of 
its self-action, he may yet be regarded as the real 
and responsible doer of them. For, what a man 
does by his vicar, he does himself (though, if the 
vicar act for himself, how can another lay claim to 



298 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

his acts ?). However, inasmuch as man thinks he 
is free, there remains the possibility that his vicar 
has some way of commending to him the freedom 
and responsibility due to a competent thinker. 
Now let us think that he succeeds in this. Then, 
we have the man free by the self-action of his will, 
and all he has to do is to fold his arms and wait, 
until his vicar has made his freedom over to him, 
on condition, however, that it should in no case 
cause him to accept it, neither permit his motives 
to do so. 

15. Here another formidable puzzle obtrudes 
itself : I am free to admit that, inasmuch as non- 
determinists are not over-careful in their language, 
it may after all be claimed that a self-acting will 
is man's, and that, therefore, whilst the Creator is 
exculpated from sin (seeing that, by the present 
supposition, it must rest with the voluntary act of 
the man who has such a will) it does not necessarily 
relieve the latter, now that he is furnished with 
such a will, at his command, if indeed he can com- 
mand such a will. Now, we have here a self-acting 
will put forward to relieve God of responsibility 
for man's sinful thoughts and deeds. But you 
remember that such a will is placed outside and 
independent of motives, expressly to give it a self- 
sufficiency relieved of their power. (I have already 
mooted this point in other connections.) 

But I wish now to see how this newer figment 
fits in with the known facts of thought and voli- 
tion or choice. Granting such a will to be man's, 
it is to be remembered that non-determinists have 



A SELF-ACTING WILL 299 

it self-active, for the reason that neither the force 
of one's reasons nor that of anything else, save 
such a will, should determine our conduct. Bear- 
ing this in mind, I am tempted to propound the 
question : If such a will is so fledged with the self- 
sufficiency of self-action as to be independent of 
God as a causal efficient, in its own acts, and in this 
way exonerate Him from responsibility for the sins 
of Adam and his posterity, would it not, in like 
manner and for like reasons, also discharge any 
man with such a will from the guilt of sin ? The 
logic is inexorable. If it exculpates one, it excul- 
pates the other. Any kind of self-action devised 
expressly to traverse cause, and so have the Cre- 
ator eliminated as, in any way, a responsible fac- 
tor for what we see of sin, equally traverses the 
causal efficiency of our reasons, and with like 
result. 

Such lavish blundering may be a trifle pictu- 
resque, but not very instructive. 

The determinist handles these points in accord- 
ance with the known facts of volition and choice. 
He has an abiding faith in the power and office of 
his reasons. He argues : If the man himself does 
his acts, by the inherent force of his reasons — in 
other phrase, if he is endowed with the capacity 
for achieving knowledge and acting upon it — in 
that case, the act is his own, and he alone is respon- 
sible. For he walks by the light of the prevailing 
reasons or motives which he affirms ; and these 
identify him with his acts, as having consciously 
conceived, and, then, exercised, a power to do them ; 



300 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

and therefore has he made himself consciously and 
personally responsible for the exercise of that 
power, in all he does. He sees the act is his, by 
conception and execution, and therefore, also the 
guilt or innocence, if there be any. Of this there 
is not even the faintest shadow of doubt in him, 
— any more than he can doubt of his conceiving 
the prevailing reason on which he acted. He is 
open-minded and trustful. He is not to be found 
poking about with a candle in hand, in order to 
discover how God could formulate a moral govern- 
ment of choice and personal responsibility for sin, 
and Himself be guiltless, ere he, for himself, could 
feel sure of the unspeakable responsibility which 
rests upon himself for the deliberate conception 
and choice of sin. His great concern is for him- 
self and what is true of himself as a sinner, — 
true of the power of his sinful thoughts to fix the 
responsibility upon himself for his sinful acts. 
And here, he is above all things sure, beyond all 
doubt ; sure of conceiving a power of thought for 
finalizing and actualizing choice ; sure of his sin 
and the resulting personal responsibility for its 
commission. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
The Will 



A discussion of the will is a discussion of ulti- 
mating reasons or opinions, or choice. Expounded 
distinctly, the will is the inborn force of our final 
or decisive reason. The explanation has been 
explicitly outlined in preceding pages, somewhat 
after the following manner : You have opinions of 
some kind, such that you are in the position of one 
who is about to take some final action. And these 
antecedent opinions prepare the way for your tak- 
ing that final action or step. And now, when you 
actually take that step, you must also have an 
opinion, or reason, for that too. Suppose, now, 
that you are engaged in the very act of taking that 
step. What becomes of the opinion in the instant 
of action ? Can you annihilate it instanter, and do 
the act without your reason, or reasons, — impro- 
vising an alien force, for the nonce? May be, 
you could not. But, even if you could, you would 
still have to conceive a reason for that too; and 
you would be exactly where you were before, — act- 
ing on your last reason. 

II 

So then, we are driven to the conclusion that 
thought, opinion, information, or reasons, is not an 
301 



302 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

insulated ideation posing listlessly as a mere sub- 
jective consciousness, but an activity going for- 
ward into act or conduct. And, if our opinions do 
have this practical outlet, we must needs be adher- 
ing to them with a personal (here emotional and 
desiderative) fervor, adequate to pass them over 
into our acts; and if thus passed over, we have 
gone upon an act of choice or preference, as I may 
now explain more particularly. 

An act of choice is an act of personal preference, 
on mature reflection, let us think. For, here you 
hold an opinion of personal preference so tensely 
personal that you abide in, and side with it, it may 
be, through all the successive stages and phases of 
preparation and final consummation in act or deed. 
The opinion is yours in conception and deed, — 
" one and inseparable." You choose, or prefer, or 
wed, all your acts. 

But wherefore ? Because an opinion of prefer- 
ence is but yourself, discursively working up to a 
contemplated result. You have sought out your 
final working opinion, and now you cannot play 
fast and loose with it, and so recall the power you 
are putting into it. In its various stages of pro- 
gressive achievement, it had your support, and now 
that you have come to an act of choice, you cannot 
withdraw the same support. You have won the 
power to act on your final thought, and a final 
thought goes on to result, as remorselessly as an 
iceberg. 

To be sure, every opinion, in its earlier stages, 
is held with a vigor, perhaps somewhat more cogni- 



THE WILL 303 

tive than actile, or finalizing. But then, as soon as 
it becomes final, it and its peculiar vigor become 
both conceptive and creative of a preferred work. 
I need not say that this vigor may be remarked 
even in the faintest perceptions, or the beginnings 
of thought. But then, as previously intimated, 
when it culminates in conduct or deed, the personal 
fervor becomes more intense, and so is given over 
to an actile or efficiently constructive effort. 

Wherefore, I claim that, from every point of 
view, whatever may be the last phase of the thought 
we take for doing an act, we take the same in doing 
it. Or, to put it differently, we may say that what 
prepares us for doing an act reappears in the work 
we do as the power of our final discursion. It does 
our work. 

And, to prevent misconception, let me say dis- 
tinctly that this power of our last discursion, this 
personal fervor which is born in and with our de- 
cisive thoughts, is the sole, true cause of all our 
acts, passing over, as it does, into all we do, as 
our personal preference or choice, and giving us an 
act of volition or will. For an act of will is an act 
of volition, which, in turn, is nothing more or less 
than an act of personal preference, or choice, deter- 
mined by a prevailing reason. So much to give my 
position explicitly. 

in 

I am fighting my way up to the mount whence 
we may see how a productive energy like thought, 
behaves itself when, upon reaching the crisis of 



304 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

performance, it would finish with its proposed task. 
And, I could wish to see more clearly, if possible, 
whether this power of thought which gives us pref- 
erence or choice, is volition or will, or whatever else 
we may call the real cause of our acts. 

As intimated above, similar considerations apply 
to questions of power in all knowledge, whether 
preparative or actile. For every information, be 
it perception or conception, or what not, has its 
peculiar power, which, on becoming final, issues in 
conduct as our voluntary cause. But this power 
of knowledge is the power of the person who ac- 
quires it. And, therefore, whenever we conceive 
an ultimating opinion or conviction, we have ac- 
quired a personal energy, called indifferently an 
intelligent impulsion or voluntary cause. Thought 
and its power is, then, the true cause of all we do, 
or can do. 

It is, of course, gradually attempered by every in- 
crement of knowledge, every such increment telling 
(in the quality and vigor of the impulsion) of the de- 
gree of culture attained by the thinker, as may be 
seen from the following. Inform a mere child of the 
letters and civilization of Greece and Kome, and 
he would not be moved by the same impulses, 
either in kind or degree, as a cultivated scholar. 
In either case, however, the thing called opinion, 
or reason, or conviction, does not profess to be knowl- 
edge without at least a due minimum of mental and 
personal vehemence. It must have some vim, else 
it cannot live. 

Now then, if the character of this vehemence is 



THE WILL 305 

measured by the amount and quality of mental and 
moral cultivation on hand at the moment of acting, 
it is evident that, by the lex prioritatis, every pre- 
ceding opinion, whatever may be its peculiar con- 
tingent of power, is also to be measured by the 
extent of our, then, cultivation. And if this be so, 
then the impulse, which we call the will, is here 
again, as always, a constituent element of our 
thought or opinion, etc. ; or a power in knowledge, 
without which no thought can pretend to main- 
tain itself for an instant, whether preparatory or 
final. 

And so we conclude, again, that the will is noth- 
ing, but the force of our final reason passing on to 
performance, and doing battle there as choice, or 
the personal fidelity of the thinker to his own pre- 
vailing reason. 

Knowledge is power, personal power, and there- 
fore the power of our thought is always on hand, 
and always in season. 

The slightest consideration will confirm these 
views. A step backward, and we are with the 
child and its stormy passions and propensities, its 
immature conceptions and wildering emotions. It 
has yet to learn of the intelligent and more per- 
sonal ardor inspired by wider vistas of knowledge. 

It is mainly governed by a flush of impulses 
which proceed from a natural curiosity, or capac- 
ity, for knowledge, as seen in the many phases 
of childish wonder. For this infantile curiosity, 
be it understood, is to be explained as an original 
datum, not to knowledge, but to the thinking faculty 



306 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

itself, — vesting it with, discursive potentials and 
possibilities which become developed and actual in 
motives and conduct. And here, too, let me repeat, 
it must needs have emotions, such as fear, wonder, 
surprise, etc., corresponding with the broken lines 
of its juvenile conceptions. 

And here, it will be readily seen that, since its 
mental powers can, then, be but slightly articulated, 
the emphasis of its thoughts, though present, is 
marked by the flux of indefinite and incomplete 
emotions, corresponding with the wavering articu- 
lation of its first ideas. However, these remarks 
are strictly applicable only to the initial stages of 
thought. For both native curiosity and infantile 
emotion are transformed into, or else remodelled by, 
rational potencies, as soon as these infantile efforts 
have stimulated the rational factor into an exercise 
of its conceptive and constructive functions. 

And this suggests a further explanation. When- 
ever one achieves his first distinct idea, known to 
be such, he has rational power, — actile, desidera- 
tive, decisive, voluntary, — and at that very mo- 
ment begins to be & person. For until he can have 
an idea, in clear distinct outline, he is but an ani- 
mal, in the vegetative stage. Such an idea, thus 
distinctly outlined and affirmed, is then a personal 
power, because, in acquiring it, thus distinctly out- 
lined, the child begins to rate himself as an indi- 
vidual energy distinct from objects not himself. 
But such an idea, be it ever so infantile, is at once 
information and infantile power, — the information 
and power of & person, — and therefore a personal 



THE WILL 307 

conceit and power going into the infant's deeds and 
enouncing the force of personal convictions. 

Thenceforward, mind and person grow up to- 
gether, and the child is more and more governed 
by personal considerations ; and now he essays to 
set up the signs of an intelligent interest, self- 
esteem, personal preference, and a judicious choice 
of such alternatives as found on these advanced 
appreciations. And as all these infantile consid- 
erations — now artless, now astute, but ever dis- 
criminating — grow and take on discursive power, 
the actile force of the child's ideas is undergoing 
a corresponding metamorphosis, and he begins to 
employ them in maturer acts of volition and choice. 
His will is born. He is a power unto himself. 

IV 

I now take advantage of these distinctions, in 
order to their application to acts of perception, 
more particularly. 

We begin by perceiving, say, a disturbance in 
one of our sensor organs, called a sensation. Here 
we have achieved the idea of this disturbance. Now 
what is the power of this idea or information? 
Eeflect a moment. 

On its first appearance the child has no experi- 
ence, and so may, for a season, have a weakness for 
the native (untrained) curiosity of the ante-rational 
period, and so realize action without any knowledge 
of those alternative considerations which modify 
its action in later years. If so, it will be more or 
less dazed by the craze of unbridled impulses w^hich 



308 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

attract and distract its attention. Bnt if the mind 
apprehend the sensation, and so make a distinction 
between it and its apprehension, or, if it see the dis- 
turbance to be one thing, and its conscious appre- 
hension another, and thus bring this idea into 
relation with itself, — giving it a meaning and 
affirming its relation to itself as the party for 
thought, — it is so far forth enriched by the power 
of the ideas acquired. It is now a personal and 
voluntary power, capable of acting for itself within 
the confines of its limited experiences. 

Turning, now, to informations sought out of con- 
ception and its wider sweep of vision, I note a 
corresponding accretion of power in ideas. 

Here we found on a more varied experience, and 
regard everything with an interest more adultly 
personal and responsible. We have reached the 
point where we can act on conceptions, not alone 
of things external, but of what we can do with 
them in the interest of our self-conscious and cal- 
culated needs and prejudices. 

But here conception, it were almost a folly to 
repeat, is reinforced and strengthened by an in- 
crease of personal interest, or egoism, developed in 
developing our own world of educated conceits and 
wants. 

And here, again, we have reached the point where 
we can exercise a rational curiosity, admeasured by 
maturer thoughts. We have become a thoughtful, 
provident, watchful person, choosing, or else es- 
chewing, everything out of a regard for the perso- 
nal interests involved in building up ourselves. 



THE WILL 309 

But the force of every information thns acquired 
is the force of our personal and responsible distinc- 
tions. And if so, it becomes the motor force which 
irreversibly determines conduct. It is the Will. 

So distinctly can the point be made out that each 
idea has a power peculiar to itself, and which goes 
into conduct as our conative energy ! I have been 
careful to explain that the first, chronologically, 
may have but a minimum of the personal vehemence 
born with those which rest on a broader concep- 
tion of our growing needs. Indeed, the conclusion 
we are driven to, on evidence, proceeds upon the 
indisputable fact that, whether we act upon a natu- 
ral curiosity almost flagrantly juvenile, or from an 
intelligent view of the perilous responsibilities of a 
maturer choice, our informations gather power and 
quality from the degree of personal interest, — con- 
servative, latitudinarian, or other, — developed in 
their acquisition. It seems, then, that every idea 
we achieve is just so much personal power, emo- 
tional or desiderative, at our service for consum- 
mating our purposes, — its vigor waxing more 
intensely personal, the more we uncover our per- 
sonal wants, or educed requirements. 



I have been remarking upon the power of ideas, 
as seen in every stage and phase of intellection. I 
found this power everywhere, promptly active and 
decisive, giving us effective and final discursion. 
So far, so good. This was part of my scheme. 
And I have maintained that we may designate this 



310 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

power, at our option, as emotion or desire, choice or 
will, etc., holding, nevertheless, that it is ever, and 
unchangeably, a vehemence inherent in our opin- 
ions or informations, yielding a volitional impulse, 
it may be, more intensely personal, when we have 
acquired the power to rate our conceptions in ac- 
cordance with their bearing on our welfare. 

And this leads me to explain that this more 
personal force of our thought is the discovery of 
rational impulses, called emotions and destines. For 
just as we remove the borders of ignorance, we 
discover our rational impulses, and throw off the 
yoke of blind propensities. But all the personal 
power you can put into emotions or desires is 
born of the thoughts or opinions which inspire 
them. This will appear as we proceed. 

However, let us here contrast our blind impulses 
with our intelligent motors, emotions and desires. 
And in order to this, I call attention to the fact 
that we are being daily bred to an intelligent exer- 
cise of our capabilities upon the things of self and 
our surroundings. We may still have blind prompt- 
ings, as aforetime. But our mind and moral pow- 
ers keep up a tireless watch for their control, in the 
interest of a developing humanity which may re- 
tire, or qualify, or even nullify, any impulse not 
sanctioned by the now dominant personal (here 
emotional and desiderative) outlook. 

I explain further. In other connections it was 
stated that, in its intercourse with things, mind 
brought home to itself only an idea or bare affir- 
mation of things and their relations, etc., etc. Now 



THE WILL 311 

however, considering the careful study we are at 
present making, of the real, psychological status 
of the idea, this seems to be quite a beggarly im- 
portation. For it has been shown to be a personal 
power, moving us to act, and faithfully releas- 
ing the vehemence of our emotions and desires. 
Whereas these latter, for their part, as faithfully 
reflect the power of the informations involved in 
conceiving and actualizing what we shall do. 

Only a word more. The question may be asked, 
what shall we say of persons who are excessively 
emotioned ? I answer that, if any one apprehend 
things or their impressions with a maximum of 
emotion, we need only look for the cause of this 
excess. In every such case it will be seen that 
some idea or information determines this emotional 
overplus. That is to say, some discovery of the 
mind, resulting in choice, or personal preference, 
asserts itself emotionally, to the point of redun- 
dancy. The motive power of emotions and de- 
sires is always with the intellections that inspire 
them. But I pass on to other considerations. 

VI 

In concluding this branch of our subject, I submit 
that I have been able to establish some important 
conclusions, the which I may presently summarize. 
I need scarcely remind the reader that, in an act of 
choice, the thinker has bestowed his final thought 
and its power, upon what he is minded to do, and 
that he does it in the selfsame instant by the 
same power of thought put forward into his act 



312 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

or deed, and that it is this last effort of thought 
which does the work, etc., etc. I have also ex- 
pounded the offices of thought in other particulars. 
I have explained that it determines a condition of 
soul, for the infant, in virtue of which it becomes 
a person, competent to take a peculiar interest in 
itself and that world of alternatives which it pro- 
pounds for choice and action. I have also shown 
that it has charge of our native propensities and 
vagrant passions, giving us true emotions and de- 
sires, for our rational impulsion. And I have like- 
wise shown that these latter are our personal 
motors, and that they lean upon informations 
which reflect their every phase, from the most in- 
dolent conception to that irreversible one which 
has charge of the details of performance and 
conduct, maintaining ever that the operative strin- 
gency of our thoughts is our sole voluntary effi- 
ciency, and denying that there is such a thing as 
a will distinct from this. 

And now pardon a word for myself, for I, too, 
have my share of thought and its power, and I 
can say that my whole life has been one unending, 
impetuous, uncrushable and consciously thoughtful 
(personal and responsible) irruption upon the king- 
doms of matter and mind which allure me with 
their spoils, and repay me with discoveries which 
minister to the self-conscious little world of egoism 
I have built up of the force of my conceptions. 

And yet, for colloquial reasons, one may be held 
to have a will characteristically indolent or ener- 
getic, resolute or vacillating, halting or determined, 



THE WILL 313 

artless or astute, pliant or stubborn, etc., etc. But 
what is that, but the soft, or else severe intentness 
of the intellectual gaze, a phase or expression of 
the personal interest we all take in our own opin- 
ions, or convictions. 

VII 

If now I am correct in my exposition, why should 
we be the least concerned about our volitions (pref- 
erences or choices) being determined by motives 
or reasons ? Something must determine our choice, 
and if that is in the thought itself, then the deter- 
mination is by a power of mental discursion, and 
therefore free and voluntary. I am overhauling 
the argument to make the points explicit and un- 
mistakable. And therefore, I repeat that, if in 
this determination, we are employing an energy 
that is inseparable from, and an original element 
of, our thought, then we do but project the power 
of our decisive thought into what we do, and that, 
alone, is the energy we are in search of. And this 
domination of the stress of our thought or informa- 
tion, as expressed in our emotions or desires when 
consummated in choice of act or deed, — it is this 
dominant urgency of our thought, which implicates 
us with acts for which we are personally responsi- 
ble. For thought makes us persons, and personally 
accountable, as well. 

Now, if the power that goes into our acts is an 
element of the knowledge we acquire, it is in fact 
thought itself, grasping its objects by a power of 
its own. But now, if we take the position that 



314 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

this energy, so rational and so intimately ours, is 
in some way inscrutable to us, distinct from thought 
and its achievements, even then we might regard 
it in the light of an instrument, at our service, like, 
say, a finger whose activities are called forth by 
the power of thought and its distinctions. But 
whose distinctions, whose power ? Plainly the 
man's own, by right of his active discovery of 
knowledge, and the moral (thoughtful) evaluations 
of both motives and conduct, — evaluations which 
make him personally accountable for his acts. 

But again, some regard the will as a distinct 
actile power sufficient unto itself, as a voluntary 
cause set apart to do the work of volition, or choice. 
This theory has been abundantly adverted to in 
previous paragraphs. But now, without knowing 
exactly what is meant by such a will, allow me to 
observe that, even if we had a will, as a distinct 
volitional efficiency, we could never will ourselves 
discharged from the force of our reasons, without 
evicting our personal responsibility. For the very 
life of moral freedom hangs on the reasons that 
determine acts of choice. We can indeed act on 
either a good or bad reason, but we must have, at 
least, one of some kind, or not act at all. But 
whatever be our reasons, these fetch us choice, and 
not a power of will to do anything. The law for 
personal rectitude covers every act of choice, and 
this choice is simply our ultimate reason for doing 
something in preference to another something. 
For though free, we are bound by the enabling 
act which restricts us to our choice and conditions 



THE WILL 315 

its exercise by a conception of the moral and other 
consequences involved. 

But allow me to submit the so-called will to some 
further scrutiny. 

We often say : The will determines actions. And 
this is correct, if we are referring to the will, as 
the personal preference of a competent thinker 
walking in the strength of some final conviction. 
Whatever may be our language colloquially, we 
can mean only that our actions are determined 
by what we think, when we act efficiently. And 
surely, until our thought turns unchangeably effi- 
cient in our acts, it may not have acquired the dis- 
tinctive feature of an actile energy which fits it 
for the tasks and problems of life and acts. We 
see then, from these several points of view, that 
motives, reasons, informations, etc., determine con- 
duct, determine personal preference and behavior, 
going forward into result as our conative energy 
resolutely final, and equally present and urgent in 
deeds, and the multiform elaborative processes of 
discursion. 

The power of informations is always on hand, 
and always in season. 

vm 

I propose now to see how this our power of rea- 
sons will deport itself when confronting still other 
and deeper problems of life. 

I am taking it for granted that man acquires 
power in acquiring knowledge, and that this power 
determines all he does. And herein, he is free, and 



316 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

so far supernatural, just as his Creator is super- 
natural. That he should make sure of what he 
will do, and also feel bound by his moral apprecia- 
tions and the sanctions of a divine law for personal 
implication in, and responsibility for, all he does, — 
this is an ordinance of God holding him bound by 
his thoughts and acts. For, to be a moral agent, 
the acts must have the power of knowledge. The 
character of our reasons determines the character 
of our acts. And this is the one unique power 
(specialized, of course, according to the measure 
and quality of our culture), which culminates in 
deeds for which we are responsible. The conclusion 
is irresistible that, when we act on reasons, we act 
on their inherent force, but this force depends on 
the personal interest we take in a self-conscious 
condition of soul which we have made our own by 
cultivating our intellectual powers. For now that 
we have sought out knowledge, we do not lay it 
on the shelf, but cleave to it and keep it in hand, 
as part and parcel of ourself. And so when one 
sees his own thoughts going over into conduct as 
its cause, and dares to know of the divine sanctions 
which bind a conscious actor to what he does, he 
cannot escape personal responsibility for such a 
venture, without the complete deformation of both 
mind and morals. And, therefore, I insist that 
every thought has a distinctive power of its own 
which, on becoming causative, cries out: Hoc est 
agendum. And this cry of peremptory command 
goes with every variety of information, from the 
most easy-going perception to moral constraint. 



THE WILL 317 

At first, to repeat, it may be but sparingly per- 
sonal, the child not having, as yet, conceived any 
definite idea of its personal belongings, but it grows 
with the growth of our educed humanities. 

It may proceed from some gentle idealism which 
suggests only indifference to action. But when it 
nestles in the practical honesties of a responsible 
soul, the fervor of this personal power will be 
immeasurably intensified. 

And, permit me to remark, in passing, that the 
power which is begotten of all knowledge is in 
itself an element of irresistible attraction to man. 
Indeed, it is chiefly this thing of its power which 
impels us to search for, and so make use of, the 
constructive ideas of Omniscience placed within our 
reach. For, as before explained, He has spoken to 
our intelligence in all we see of matter and mind, 
and we amass all our knowledge by a most literal 
certification of some of His thoughts. 

So too, after the manner of His mind, but within 
finite limits, we may put the power of our thoughts 
into the work of our hands, and this finite work of 
our hands will have place in our day as a new crea- 
tion, giving forth ideas of cause and effect, subject 
and attribute, purpose, meaning, principle, etc., 
just as His works do, — and because all work pro- 
claims knowledge. And therefore, do I maintain 
that, in all this thing of perception and conception, 
the human mind is an autonomy of rational capaci- 
ties, equipped for the tasks of discursion and deeds. 
And, if it ever is to have this power, it is because 
of an original ordinance which fits it for achieving 



318 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

ideas — ideas which are born of the fiat of our dis- 
cursive processes, starting from the rational centre 
in quest of the rational coordination of all things 
we affirm in the domains of matter and mind. 

IX 

Our long discussion must now close, and what 
I have hitherto written must be left in garrison, 
to conserve the positions gained, whilst, withal, it 
behooves me, for my part, to " pass over the river 
and rest in the shade." 

I conclude with a brief summary of the points 
urged: The power of thought is always in hand, 
always in season, and always efficient. Its vigor 
is born with, and part and parcel of, its achieve- 
ment. So also is its distinctive quality or individ- 
uality. If it be of the stupid kind, it is, so far forth, 
robbed of its normal role of action. Nevertheless, 
it would be a sheer monstrosity, if any information, 
however feeble, should be deficient in its proper 
vigor. The very soul of an idea is its individual 
vigor, be it strong, or be it feeble. 

But what becomes of this power when we are 
engaged in a decisive act ? It is, as before averred, 
promptly present, and, upon the touch of opportu- 
nity, moves into position, and passes like current 
gold. 

But here I must be careful to get all the facts 
before me. Even the opportune moment for deci- 
sive action is a problem to be solved by an appre- 
ciation of the facts, and judgment on their eviden- 
tial force. Moreover, even the force of our reasons 



THE WILL 319 

is kept under control by the force of other reasons 
which determine conduct finally ; for one may not 
go into acts for which he knows he will be person- 
ally responsible, until he is satisfied of the reasons 
which, from his then point of view, he can make 
free to act upon. 

Hence, the latent stress of every thought that 
solves questions of business, duty, or personal 
responsibility, or even personal worthlessness, is 
never brought out, until we are convinced that we 
can act with required resolution, precision, and 
efficiency, in making the attack. And so it comes 
to this that mental and moral power is born of the 
force of our ideas, and the idea itself is simply a 
discursive achievement of one competent to report 
it. Wherefore, whenever such an one has acquired 
an idea, he has, ipso facto, acquired its actile force. 
And this force goes into what we do, as our volun- 
tary efficiency, or the finalizing vehemence of our 
thought. And very doubtless, even from the first 
intellections of the child, an idea once acquired, 
becomes a personal fervor, emotional or desidera- 
tive, tingling with causative expectancy. For how 
could it maintain itself, even for an instant, out of 
all connection with the person who conceives and 
plans for its fulfilment, — of course very artlessly 
in the beginnings of infantile discursion ? But 
thenceforward, every idea, from every source, be- 
comes more and more a personal power, or volun- 
tary impulsion, expressed in emotion, or desire, 
and ultimated in work, or conduct. And so, I 
conclude that every information, reached by atten- 



320 THE POWER OF THOUGHT 

tion and mental elaboration, has, in itself, a power 
which passes over into deeds or acts, as our per- 
sonal and voluntary efficiency. Nay, more, it is an 
investment in mental and moral culture which is 
kept in store for the exigencies of future action and 
conduct — the acquisition of a first idea, with its 
peculiar power, helping on to a second, with its 
peculiar power, and so on, ad infinitum. And this 
power seats itself so firmly in what it accomplishes 
that you cannot even conceive of its inhibition 
in loco. 

The reader can say whether there is any will, 
or need of any, conceived as distinctly separable 
from the inherent force of the reasons on which 
we act. 

There is pluck and determination in an idea. It 
is born to rule. It asserts undivided sway over the 
empire of volition and morals. It forges its way 
to performance with a tenacity of purpose almost 
ferocious. It is ubiquitous. It is a pervading 
presence. It has stood every pressure from the 
beginning. It informs and empowers everything, 
from the minutest atoms to the " mills of the Gods." 
It is a law for a universe of entities. It is our 
personal and voluntary competency. It is salted 
with the salt of all our possibilities. It shapes 
our ends. It has charge of all our humanities. It 
spans the confines of time, space, and eternity. It 
is irrepressible, and cannot be ruled out. It has 
come to stay. 






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